


Shameless: The Mickey Milkovich Story; Season 4

by FistfulofDollars



Series: Shameless: The Mickey Milkovich Story [4]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Drug dealing/using, Explicit descriptions of criminal activity including:, I'll add more later with new chapters, I'm probably missing some things, Ian is underage, Internalized Homophobia, M/F Dubcon (Mickey/Svetlana), M/M, Mentions of Prostitution, Mickey isn't, Murder, Underage sex (later w/Mickey&Ian), Violence, also, sex without condoms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:42:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 58,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27924715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FistfulofDollars/pseuds/FistfulofDollars
Summary: This is season 4 in my story of the show seen through Mickey's eyes. I would recommend reading the other three works in the story before this one for clarity's sake :)
Relationships: Ian Gallagher/Mickey Milkovich
Series: Shameless: The Mickey Milkovich Story [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1918894
Comments: 14
Kudos: 65





	1. Capitalist Communists

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter took so long -_- I'm already half-way through writing the next one, it just took me a while to edit this one. More sad Mickey here, but Ian will be back next chapter!   
> Here's my summary for this chapter:  
> Home life continues to deteriorate for Mickey as he struggles to carve out a career path for himself he can live with. Mandy loses contact with Ian, and Mickey worries.

Season 4; Chapter 1: Capitalist Communists

It’s snowing the day they leave Iggy at the hospital. Huge, white flakes that come down so heavy and close together there’s barely a few feet of visibility outside.

Mickey should have known better than to work with ‘friends’ Iggy met at Cook County corrections. Frankly, with the way the snow is coming down, he should have known better than to get out of bed at all today. But money is money.

It’s him, Iggy, and Tony - all in ski masks, all ready to go to work - and three other guys Mickey has met a few times before: at the house, drinking beer, plotting with Iggy. A gathering no doubt forbidden by their release from Cook County, but there’s no one in the Yards to snitch and few parole officers willing to risk their neck for an unplanned visit to the Milkovichs’. 

One of the guys - Anton...something - is older, mid-forties maybe, but dresses like he’s yet to graduate highschool: a hoodie, jeans, sneakers, and to top it all off a small gold hoop in one ear. He’s definitely the leader of the other two, and even Iggy will defer to him in a way that makes Mickey uncomfortable and only strengthens the feeling that he shouldn’t have gotten out of bed today.

The other two guys are younger, Mickey’s age, and follow Anton with all the passion and loyalty of men who have never belonged to any group in their lives and are just happy to be included. Their attitude does nothing to calm Mickey’s nerves as they all pile into a shitty black SUV together, ready to go to work. 

Iggy and his prison buddies have been watching a house on Ashland, off and on, for the past few weeks. It’s a pretty run-of-the-mill trap house, and the guy who runs it is unaffiliated, cooks his own stuff, and lets his customers get high right on site. A real one-stop-shop for local junkies, and the perfect target for their crew. Money and drugs just behind a shitty wood door, and little chance of retaliation if they do this right. 

A perfect, easy mark. Walk in, guns drawn, keep an eye on the meth heads, take the cash and anything else lying around, and run.

One of the guys stays behind to keep the car running, and the rest of them walk up the steps of the porch; their progress hidden from any nosy neighbors by the heavy snow. The handle of the house is broken and unlocked. There’s a chain, but it snaps with little resistance when Iggy kicks the door in. Mickey and Tony head straight upstairs as planned while Iggy and the other two walk deeper into the unlit first floor, guns held out in front of them like a SWAT team about to make a bust. 

All the two of them find upstairs are warm bodies, strung-out and unconcerned with anything going on around them. One of the men they step over in the hallway starts yelling - a dry-throated, croaky sound - when he sees them, but Tony lands a solid blow to the guys head with his rifle, and he falls silent. 

There’s no power on up here either. All the windows are covered with newspaper or sheets, and the air smells like urine, vomit, and mold. All the doors have been removed; every room they peek into is pretty much the same. Rotting furniture, piles of blankets, bare mattresses, and people too. People who watch Mickey and Tony with their guns drawn as they walk through the hallway. People who are asleep or unconscious. 

One woman holds out a small gold chain to Mickey in offering, looking up at him. He puts his finger up to his lips in a signal for her to be quiet, then mimes at her to put the necklace away before his brother can see it. She watches his hand and then copies him, the tiny sliver of gold disappearing into her sweatshirt. It's so ratty and full of holes that if she ever tried to wash the thing, it would probably just unravel. 

It’s not that he cares if she gets to keep it or not - it’s a miracle she hasn’t already pawned it - but it would be just like Tony to try and yank it off her neck and start trouble. The people up here all look complacent enough, but they’re badly outnumbered and Mickey isn’t sure what could set them off. He doesn’t particularly feel like getting shanked with a dirty needle just because his brother saw something shiny he wanted. 

There’s nothing up here for them anyways. If there are any drugs - in measurable quantities worth taking, at least - or guns or money in the house, they’re not on this floor. Mickey is just starting to worry that maybe they were wrong, maybe there’s nothing but users in this house after all and they’re wasting their time, when he hears gunshots from downstairs. The first two are separate and distinguishable - the sound of a hand gun firing - but are followed almost immediately by more rapid-fire: Iggy’s modified AK. 

Tony makes it to the stairs first, but they’re both running. Taking the steps two at a time, and leaving the addicts behind to deal with the disturbance in whatever way they choose. 

Downstairs, there’s nothing going on at the landing or by the entryway, but a yellow glow of electric lights is coming from further inside, towards where the kitchen should be. Before they can even start that way, the sound of automatic fire comes again, a short burst this time, followed by a woman’s scream. 

This time, Tony hangs back, looking unsure with the butt of his gun resting on his shoulder and the barrel pointing at nothing in particular. Mickey pushes past him thinking-

_ I wish I brought my glock I’ve never fired this gun before if Iggy got shot what will Terry say _

-that someone might have called the cops by now, but at least the response time is shit in this neighborhood. 

The house is old and has so many walls, Mickey goes through two empty doorways before he gets to the source of the light. It’s a flood light, hooked up to a rumbling, portable generator, and it’s so bright compared to the rest of the house, he has to wait for a moment in semi-blindness before he can understand what he’s seeing. 

It is a kitchen, or at least it was, but most of the cabinets and counters have been removed leaving nothing but grimy outlines on the walls where they used to stand. Two women, both in nothing but their underwear, are cowering next to the moldy outline of where the fridge used to be. One of them is visibly shaking, her head buried in her arms, and Mickey thinks maybe she’s the one who screamed even though he has no reason to believe that. 

The only other furniture in the room are two white folding tables set up towards the center, framed by matching plastic chairs. The tables are covered with a mess of saran wrap, bricks of powdered heroin, boxes of baking soda, and thick bundles of rubber banded cash. Everything they came here for, but Mickey’s no longer interested. 

Half in a chair, half sprawled across one of the tables, is a man with the black hood of his sweatshirt still pulled over his head, and he’s not moving. In the few seconds Mickey watches, the red puddle of blood spreading out from the guy’s head touches a loose pile of white powder and spreads like dye. 

To Mickey’s right is Iggy, holding his AK in one hand and his stomach with the other. His own blood soaking through his wool gloves and dripping onto the floor. 

“Mick, that fucker shot me.”

“We gotta get out of here.” Mickey says quietly, but his body isn’t ready to start moving yet. Past Iggy, on the floor, are the other two guys they came in with. Anton looks fine, uninjured at least, but he’s kneeling next to the younger guy, shaking his shoulder, talking quietly. There’s a bullet hole right through the kid’s forehead, and no amount of muttering is going to change that. 

Mickey tries again, louder this time. 

“We gotta go!”

Anton’s not listening; he’s trying to pull his dead friend into his arms, but the body is cumbersome and unresponsive, and watching him struggle is starting to make Mickey feel sick. Iggy is hunching over more, almost kneeling now, still holding his gut. 

“You killed him! You killed Marcus!” The shout comes from one of the women in the corner of the room, and she’s standing up now, too distressed to understand her best play is to stay silent like her friend. Mickey’s going to remind her. He’s going to tell her to sit the  _ fuck  _ down and shut the  _ fuck  _ up, but before he can there’s another gunshot from behind him. 

After that, there’s no point telling her anything because the bullet hits her right in the eye and she falls down at his feet as dead as Marcus. 

He knows what’s going to happen next and thinks maybe there’s a chance to stop it, but doesn’t even manage to open his mouth before Anton fires again and the crying girl crouching on the floor jerks and slumps over. 

“What the  _ fuck _ !?” He hears himself yell, and it’s more of an indictment than an actual question. Anton meets his horrified glare from the floor without blinking. 

“No witnesses.” He says, and finally manages to throw his friend’s body over his shoulder with a grunt. “Let’s go. Your brother needs a hospital.”

“Jesus Christ.”

That’s Tony. He’s finally decided to join the party, coming into the kitchen door just behind Mickey, and he goes to Iggy trying to help him stand up straight. Iggy pushes him off. 

“Get the stuff, man.” He says pointing to the money on the table, some of which is now speckled with blood. Tony looks to Mickey for confirmation, but he’s got none to give, one way or the other.

“Get the stuff and let’s fucking go!” Anton says sharply, and carries his dead friend out the door without waiting to see if they’ll follow. Tony looks at him again, and this time Mickey nods. Iggy still needs help so he grabs him by the waist and takes as much of his weight as he can as they limp out to the car. Tony follows behind them carrying a bag of money and a bag of drugs.

*-*-*

There’s no choice. Iggy is bleeding bad; he needs a hospital. They drop him at Holy Cross while the snow continues without letting up, and Mickey watches from the back window of the SUV as he hobbles inside. They drive off before anyone can ask them what they’re doing here, or why one of the men in the backseat doesn’t appear to be breathing. 

The other guys drop him and Tony off at home, and Tony takes their half of the score out the back door without a word. Anton is just holding his gun, looking at his dead friend, and there’s a part of Mickey that’s expecting to get shot in the back all the way until he hears the car door slam shut behind him. It disappears into the heavy snow before he and Tony make it through the fence.

“Stupid, fucking assholes.” Tony mutters as they climb up the steps, and Mickey follows him inside without a word. Terry is on the couch with Kenyatta, and looks up when they get inside, but Mickey doesn’t want to deal with any of this right now. He goes straight to the bathroom, suddenly desperate for a shower, and leaves Tony to tell everyone what happened.

*-*-*

He’s naked under the warm water, and just letting it fall onto his face. It drips down his chest, his hips, to his toes. He doesn’t bother with soap. His hands want to shake, but he has them pressed flat against the tiles in front of him. 

He misses the simplicity of dealing. Constant demand, if you knew where to look. He could do the whole job on his own except for one part: the supply. He isn’t affiliated with any gangs, doesn’t know anyone in the neighborhood who grows on the kind of scale where they could hire him to sell full-time, and Terry… Well, no one has been stupid enough to say anything about that, but Mickey has his own suspicions about how cooperative Terry was with the parole board in order to get released last year. 

Whatever the cause, his father appears to be surrounded by nothing but burned bridges himself, and has chosen an early retirement from his previous duties as head of house in favor of beer, bitching, and prolonged spells on the couch. All activities which he used to reserve for after a job had been done, but the only job Terry Milkovich does these days is the one assigned to him by his parole officer, and the family is as likely to see a cent from that as they are to open the front door and see their mother standing there, alive and well.

So Mickey’s stuck; stuck working with his brothers and guys he barely knows at all, and the further he gets into his father’s line of work, the more he hates it. The more he hates himself.

He should have just left with Ian. They could be anywhere right now, far away from the Yards and all the fucking bullshit that comes with this place. 

Ian could be  _ anywhere _ .

_ You killed him! _

He keeps seeing that woman in his mind, half naked under the intense glow of the flood light. How she had screamed at him. Then, just as sudden, how she had stopped. 

The other girl.

That kid with the bullet in his head.

Iggy, who might be dead right now.

Ten minutes. He just needs ten minutes then he’ll go back out and be normal again. 

Tony doesn’t need ten minutes to be normal. He’s probably out there right now explaining everything to Terry like a good son, and Mickey would give just about anything to be like that too, but there’s no exchange rate of consciousness. He can only be so much of what he’s not before he’s just not anything anymore. 

He’s almost done now, at least. The overwhelming emotions fading away as quick as his anger usually does once he’s let it out. He wipes the water off his face, rubbing at his cheeks and puffy eyes. He’s just starting to think about actually soaping up while he’s in here when the bathroom door opens. 

“Occupied!” He yells out. A guy can’t get ten fucking minutes to himself in this house. 

“Mickey?”

It’s Svetlana, of course. Even after months of snapping at her, she still has a way of following him around, of crowding into his space, that makes him want to scream. 

“I’ll be out in a sec.” That’s all he’s going to say. He can still hear the tears in his voice, clogging his throat and making it hard to talk normally. 

“I wait then.” 

He can tell even through the curtain that she’s come further into the room and is leaning against the sink. Her voice isn’t demanding now, the way it sometimes is, but quiet and thoughtful. 

“Tony tell us what happened. I am sorry about Iggy.”

Mickey continues rinsing himself off - his arms, hair, face again - mostly for something to do, but Svetlana stays. She’s quiet now, thinking maybe, but he can’t even begin to guess what about. 

After a few more minutes the water begins to lose its heat. With the number of people in this house, he’s lucky to have gotten the time he has, and before it can turn icy cold, he shuts the faucet off. Svetlana’s still here; he can feel her behind the curtain, waiting. 

When he pulls the curtain back just far enough to stick his head out and look, he sees she’s taken his towel off the rack and is holding it in her arms just above her ever-expanding belly. There’s another towel in the sink behind her, but none within arms reach for him. 

“Can I have that?” He asks, but she just stares at him until he hides back behind the curtain in case his eyes are still puffy. The way she’s looking at him makes him think he’s already given himself away.

“Come out. I will dry you off.”

“Yeah, I’m gonna pass on that.” 

He kneels instead, and reaches past the curtain to try and get his pants, but she kicks them out of reach before he can. 

_ Goddammit _

“What the fuck is your problem?”

“I am your wife.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Let me help.”

“I don’t need your fucking help!”

She pulls the curtain back without warning, making the metal rings grate against the bar with the force of it. Mickey covers himself with one hand and tries to grab the curtain with the other, but she doesn’t let go. 

“I wrap you like baby. It feel good.”

“I don’t want to be wrapped like fucking baby.” He says, but knows her well enough by now. If she wants to wrap him like a baby, his best bet is to just let her get it over with. 

“Fuck. Fine.”

“Out.”

He steps out of the tub, still holding his junk, and lets her wipe the water off his shoulders and hair, chest and arms. Then, she gives the towel to him to wrap around his waist. 

He doesn’t feel like a baby, but she’s not done yet. 

There’s the other towel in the sink behind her. He stares up at the vanity lights above the mirror while she wraps it around his shoulders and pulls it tight. They’re standing so close now, if he took a deep enough breath their stomachs would touch. 

“Are we done?”

But she doesn’t answer. The tightness of the towel is only making him feel claustrophobic. She holds it around him with one hand, and reaches the other one through to touch him over the towel around his waist while he continues to stare at the light. 

“Just relax…”

The sound of her voice has the opposite effect on him, but he doesn’t stop her. What’s the point? She’ll stop like she always does when it’s clear they’re not getting anywhere, or she’ll keep pushing until she’s satisfied her job as a ‘wife’ has been done. Either way, there’s a cigarette and a home-cooked meal with his name on it if he can just stay quiet and get through it. 

“Don’t you give enough handies?”

“Of course, but it is different with husband.”

She continues touching him through the towel. 

“I tell you story,” She says, and when he tries to interrupt her, she shushes him. “I tell you about when I was young woman.”

So she tells him, and touches him, and holds the blanket tight, and he listens because it’s better than always living inside his own head. Better than thinking about that woman. 

_ you killed him _

The story itself is more or less what she could have expected. Her high school, a class of just seven; her hometown, with more derelict farms than occupied buildings. She sounds more matter-of-fact than nostalgic, but Mickey listens. Thinking the whole time that someone will need to use the bathroom, giving him a chance to escape, but no one does. 

“His name was Sergay Dobrynin, and he sat two seats behind me.” This part, at least, she says fondly. “And always he was trying to charm me.”

“One day I did not study...most days. Normally it does not matter, but that day - that day the head teacher was in the classroom, watching. The teacher ask me something... I don’t remember, but I don’t know the answer.” Here she smiles, remembering. “So I get in trouble. Or I would, but Sergay he save me.”

Her hand has found the gap in the towel, and she doesn’t let his lack of an erection deter her. She touches him and describes Sergay, his dark hair, how rich his family was, the way he used to watch her as she would walk by in the halls, the way he answered those questions for her in class and how the teacher was so afraid of his family, they didn’t dare tell him off for interrupting. 

At first Mickey doesn’t understand what she’s doing, but after a few minutes he starts to suspect. She’s not really talking about herself. She’s telling him about this boy. About the way he looked in gym: sweating through his clothes, outplaying the other boys. About how protective he was, how calm. Always taking control when others got nervous. She tells him about the way he made her heart flutter, and for the first time Mickey gets a glimpse of something he never suspected: that maybe he and Svetlana aren’t as different as he likes to think. 

“And he was smart too. Much smarter than me.”

Mickey’s thinking about Ian, and he’s thinking about the dark-haired boy that used to sit behind Svetlana in a classroom half-way across the world. He glances at her, sees she’s looking at him, and looks away again. 

“You done?”

“ _ Neit _ , Mickey.”

“So what happened?”

“To him? I don’t know. I meet someone else...then I come here.” Out of the corner of his eye he sees her frown, just for a moment. “But I tell you. What he do that day, after he save me from getting in trouble.”

She leans in a little closer, but is careful to keep her stomach from pressing against his. The hand on his dick continues its gentle movement. 

“That night we don’t go home, either of us. We stay behind the school. It was cold, early dark that time of year, but it was not cold when he kissed me.”

He’s not picturing Svetlana - bundled under winter clothes, experiencing what might have been her first and last kiss before whatever it was that brought her here. Or maybe it wasn’t; he’s never asked and won’t now. He’s picturing the boy from her class: broad shoulders, strong arms, self-confident. He’s picturing the back of the school: concrete and asphalt. Snow, like the kind falling outside today.

“He tasted good, I remember.” She whispers in his ear because he’s turned his face away from hers. 

They’ve gotten closer than this before. It’s impossible to avoid her advances completely, no matter how many excuses he makes, but she’s never spoken to him this way, never told him a story like this. 

She keeps talking, the details getting more and more sordid as the towel drops to the floor and her hand continues to coax his dick into responding. It’s been ages since anyone but her has touched him, and a rarity for him to let her. There’s the other towel too, still wrapped tightly around his shoulders, and it keeps him from feeling too exposed.

She’s not talking about herself at all anymore, just describing Sergay. The way his lips and hands had felt, the smell of his clothes. It would be better if he could turn around while he listens, but there’s no way she could reach around and jerk him off without the bulge of her belly pressing into his back. He settles for closing his eyes instead. 

“Against the wall, he put his hands under mine so they don’t get too cold. Then he push inside me and I think… It doesn’t matter what I think.”

Mickey couldn’t agree more. He’s trying not to think himself, to just feel what her hand is doing. Half-heartedly imagining he’s the one in her story getting fucked by some powerful man’s son against a cold concrete wall on a snowy afternoon. In the ‘early dark’. 

And Svetlana’s good with her hand. So good, Mickey could probably take a few pointers. When she starts to really describe it - not what happened but how it felt, having him inside her, pushing in, pulling out - he knows he’s going to get there this time. The last time he had enough privacy, and was in the right mood, to jerk himself off was five days ago. The time before that, he can’t even remember. 

He does have to open his eyes eventually; after everything he saw earlier, there’s no other way to keep his mind on track. He stares at the lights above the mirror instead, too bright and blinding to picture anything else while he does. 

She doesn’t let up, strokes him a little faster even. Maybe she can also tell it’s going to work this time. By his rapid breathing, or possibly just the fact his dick is finally hard. Twitching under her hand while he thinks,  _ please please please,  _ and her grip tightens. 

Later, he regrets it. Regrets letting her touch him at all with his mind still so full of gunshots and death, his chest still feeling hollow from his brief breakdown in the shower, but in the moment all he feels is relief when he finally comes. Relief because he feels good, however briefly. Relief because this is what he’s supposed to do, as a husband, and now she’ll probably leave him alone again for a few weeks, at least. 

When he’s done, Svetlana washes her hands in the sink and Mickey takes the towel from the floor and wraps it back around his waist. He takes the other one too, back to his-

_ their  _

-room, and he and Svetlana don’t speak again until dinner when she asks him if he wants mustard on his sandwich and he says that, yeah, he does. 

*-*-*

They don’t hear from Iggy again for four days. Terry calls the hospital the next day, but can’t say enough to get any information. So they wait, and eventually Iggy calls. Not from the hospital, but the county medical facilities where he’s being processed for several parole violations including allegedly associating with criminal activity and failing his drug test. He’s okay, at least, and honestly Mickey feels less invested in the whole thing than he might have thought. 

Terry’s new parole officer is a total hard ass, and for months the majority of money coming into the house has been through jobs set up by Iggy and his friends. With Iggy inside now too, Mickey doesn’t have any connections that could come close to making up for the ones they’ve lost. He’ll just have to find another way to make money. He doesn’t want to sit around on his ass all day anymore, even if Svetlana would let him. 

It’s a rough winter, and they all deal with it in their own way. Terry drinks, Mandy hides, Kenyatta is smart enough not to start shit with any of them while he’s living in their house, and mostly just smokes weed in Mandy’s room. 

Mickey looks for work on his own while Iggy gets arraigned and Tony uses their uncle’s asphalt business to claim unemployment during the winter season. Joey comes and goes as he pleases, though it’s mostly been the latter these days. Mandy thinks he’s seeing a girl on the eastside, and Terry bitches to no one in particular that he better not get her pregnant because  _ he _ won’t be shelling out for another mouth to feed. No one mentions that if Terry’s making any money, it hasn’t been paying for anyone’s food. 

Mickey conscripts Tony into pulling a simple phone scam with him - cold-calling and phishing for credit card info - but the effort it takes isn’t worth the reward. The same with stealing mail. It might have worked in Terry’s day, but no one mails checks anymore. Not so much as a twenty in a birthday card. 

He finally makes a few bucks stealing prepaid phones and selling them at the Alibi, but then Svetlana spends it all getting a check-up at the clinic downtown as though she’s got anything better to do than wait all day at the free one. 

The worst part of it all is that he finally understands. He understands Terry’s constant frustrations with them, with their mother. If it isn’t food, new clothes for his pregnant wife, parts to keep the family car from finally giving out, doctors visits, court fines, and the ever-present calls from debt collectors. If it isn’t all that, it’s the electricity and water bills, taxes for the house, and tabs for the car. It’s everything, all the time, and Mickey’s got twenty bucks in his pocket to pay two thousand dollars worth of bills this month. 

At least he did, before he spent it on cigarettes and beer at the Alibi. 

Times are tough, is the point. It’s always the point, from the moment he wakes up in the morning until he falls back into bed at night. Times are tough. There’s no money. The further they fall behind on everything, the less chance there is that they’ll ever be able to dig their way back out. 

And then there’s Mandy. Perpetually moody and still pining over Lip Gallagher. She’s been balancing so perfectly between working, playing house with her overgrown boyfriend, and treating weed like one of the essential food groups, Mickey isn’t sure if she’s a more functioning adult than he is, or if she’s actually edging closer and closer to a mental breakdown every day. 

He knows she’s been texting Ian, had overheard Kenyatta bitching about her always being on the phone, and her subsequent explanation. He’s never brought it up with her. The one time - a few weeks after the wedding - that she attempted to talk to him about Ian, they got into a fight so bad things were said that prevented them from even looking at each other for almost two weeks. The sting of the argument faded eventually, aided by the fact they have no choice but to move around each other in this house, but Mandy never made another attempt to imply anything about him after that, and Mickey’s only window into what she and Ian might be talking about comes from the faces she makes occasionally, checking alerts on her phone.

Oh, and Ian’s still gone, but Mickey’s the only one who really has to live with that.

Svetlana’s the real problem anyways. Her and her unborn bastard cost more than the rest of them combined, and, despite the amount of complaining she does about it, her rub ‘n tug job doesn’t pay shit. 

It’s another bitterly cold morning when she comes home from work just as he and Tony are counting the grand total of zero dollars they’ve made stealing mail, and doesn’t even have enough money from an entire night of jacking guys off to cover the make-up she bought last week. 

“Two-hundred and twenty dollars? That’s like…” He’s actually gotten a lot better with numbers since he started doing the bills, and divides the whole thing by twenty; plus a little because she said seventeen, “twelve bucks a wank.” 

Not enough is the point. Not enough to pay the water bill, not enough to buy food, but now this Sasha fuck - who thinks he owns Svetlana and all the other girls at the spa - is taking money right out of their pocket and running his small business like it’s the goddamn prison system. 

He needs to talk to Sasha himself. 

Even if Mickey could fill out the stupid application forms, he knows from Iggy and Joey’s experience there isn’t a fast food joint in the city that hasn’t filled its quota of ex-cons to hire. Even if he could get a job at one of those places, he knows from Mandy’s experience he’d be better off working for Sasha himself than trying to eke out a living from minimum wage and fifteen hours a week. 

Svetlana stands by the table holding her belly and continues to do absolutely nothing useful - like pulling a few extra hundreds out of her snatch, or at the very least grabbing him a cup of coffee - and Terry sits down at the table smelling like a rotten barrel of whiskey just as Mandy comes back from the front door.

“Who was at the door?” Terry asks her, and exhales in the general direction of the table unfortunately for everyone sitting there. 

“Debbie Gallagher. She was looking for Ian.”

“You seen him?” Mickey says his sister specifically, ignoring the husk of his father to his right.  As far as Mickey’s concerned, being out of jail this time has done wonders for his father. There’s no keeping him away from booze anymore, and Terry’s disposition has devolved into something resembling Frank Gallagher over the last few months. A pain in the ass to have around, sure, but a more-or-less harmless one at least.

“Why do you care?” Mandy asks back.

“Don’t.”

Best case scenario: Ian and Mandy are testing him. Looking for weak points, concern. Worst case scenario: Ian really is MIA and Mandy thinks he might have contacted Mickey which is all the more painful for how completely inaccurate it is. 

If he had Ian’s current number, he would have called him a thousand times. 

Ian  _ does  _ have his number, at least one of them anyway, and Mickey always keeps that phone charged. He used to check it - daily, several times - but now he rarely does. It was too impossible not to think  _ maybe, maybe he called _ every time he looked at the screen, but Ian never did. Eventually the disappointment was too much to take on top of everything else, and now the phone just sits permanently on his nightstand, screen down, cable always plugged in. It’s just waiting for Mickey to give in and check again like a desperate woman taking a second pregnancy test even though she already knows what it’s going to say.

Mandy stays at the table, checking her own phone occasionally, but doesn’t appear to receive any news from it - good or otherwise. Tony continues to pick through the mail, looking dejected. Svetlana washes dishes in the sink half-heartedly, humming a song soothing only to herself and smoking away another couple dollars they don’t have. 

Mickey needs a drink so he goes to the Alibi to get one because it’s better than drinking alone. If only marginally. 

A beer for his heart, an egg for his head. Both of them ache almost constantly, but it’s just background noise by now, and he’s never been one for wallowing. Even if he was, he’s done more than his fair share recently. What he needs now is an actual plan, something concrete he can just do already. Energy isn’t his problem, he’s got plenty of that. His problem is actually coming up with something to  _ do _ . If Ian was-

_ Oh please let’s not start that again _

“Do you have any idea what shit money whores make these days?” He asks Kevin who's setting down a bowl of eggs next to him on the bar. 

“Can’t say I do.”

“Yesterday she brought home two-twenty after working all fucking night. I don’t even think that’s minimum wage, man. There’s gotta be, like, a law or something. Right?”

“Yeah I’m pretty sure there is, but I don’t think it covers hand jobs.” Kevin says.

Unions. Handjobs. Bj’s. Whores.

Kevin hasn’t heard anything from Ian either.

Just one more thing to worry about, on top of everything else.

*-*-*

He never should have let Svetlana touch him like that the other day. When his mind had still been processing that shit job at the trap house, and she had picked then of all times to fulfill her ‘wifely duties’. Now he can barely scratch his balls without thinking about it, and - making things even worse - is the sudden resurgence of Ian in his life. Not physically, which is something Mickey’s been silently praying for since the day he left, but just as an idea. An idea that constantly floats around Mickey’s head and does nothing but keep his chest tight and his heart heavy. 

Drinking sure as shit doesn’t help. Sleeping might, but his only chance is while his wife is at work. The second she crawls into bed next to him, his mind wakes him up like it’s been waiting for her, and getting back to sleep afterwards is a losing battle.

He can’t possibly deserve this. For what? For not running away with Ian when he had the chance? For not saying ‘I love you’ back to him? For not having the good sense to just die when Terry had beat him so bad it felt like he was going to? Whatever it is, he’s  _ sorry.  _ So goddamn sorry, but there’s nothing he can do about it now. 

He just wants to masturbate. One, last, simple pleasure in never-ending days of everything else going wrong.

Svetlana’s in the living room, watching Filth and Wisdom - her favorite - for the thousandth time, and Mickey could probably quote the whole movie by now if he wanted. No explosions. Just a lot of Russian, and whores who should consider themselves lucky they’re attractive enough to make a buck off their bodies, but don’t. He can see why she likes it so much. 

She’s distracted though, and he has the time. He can jerk one out in the bathroom real quick without risking any interruptions. 

First, he has to walk by Kenyatta and Mandy. They’re constantly fooling around, making out, and fucking loud enough to bring the house down around them. It brings into harsh relief what a sham her relationship with Ian had been, but maybe Mickey’s the only one who notices that. Kenyatta himself throws into sharp relief what a sorry lot of men the Milkovich family have produced compared to his smooth, perfect skin, his broad shoulders and deep voice. Those muscles. But maybe Mickey’s the only one who notices that too. The worst part is it makes him play the ‘if I was Mandy’ game, and he hates that game. It was miserable back when it had just been: ‘if I was Mandy I could take Ian home and make out with him on the couch, or go to dinner together and share our fries’, but now, like everything in his life, it’s sunk to new lows.

_ If I was Mandy, I could get railed by Kenyatta every night while my brother listens from the other room and wishes he was me. _

Hell. Mickey’s officially crossed the threshold from ‘shitty life’ into hell. 

“Close the damn door!” He yells when he walks by, but there’s no point. Tomorrow the door will be open again because, if there’s any constant in his life, it’s that a miserable Mandy won’t stop until she’s made Mickey miserable too. 

Mission accomplished.

He’s finally on his own at least, and the bathroom is almost peaceful compared to the rest of the house. He knows better than to fantasize because that’s like wishing and wishing is like having hope. There’s nothing to think about anyways; his mental spank-bank is corrupted. Nothing left but a mess of blurry images. Dance halls and drunk Ian, guns and blood and other things that used to excite him until he got more than his fill in real life. Now all any of that does is make him feel nervous, nauseous. He can’t even imagine getting fucked by Kenyatta without thinking about Mandy; can’t imagine getting fucked by any guy without thinking about Terry.

So he doesn’t think. Just closes his eyes and touches his dick and lets himself feel it instead. Just him, rubbing one out, alone and safe. Alone.

_ Alone _

Except he doesn’t want to be alone; he wants Ian. Here, now, just one more time so Mickey could explain everything. 

The Mickey who looks back at himself in the mirror has a lot to explain, and no one to hear it even if he could find the right words. 

So he takes out his old picture of Ian. It’s Mandy’s, stolen from her things by someone so desperate to remember what Gallagher looked like, he really just couldn’t help himself. All it ever makes Mickey feel is shame and longing, and still he can’t stop taking it out to look at it whenever he gets a chance to be… well, you know. 

Today it’s because he’s been thinking about Ian, ever since Mandy had brought him up earlier. If she knew what hearing that name did to him, maybe she wouldn’t bring it up ever, or maybe she’d never stop. It’s just that seeing his face in that picture is the closest Mickey can get to  _ remembering _ . Remembering the way it had been, how easy everything had been with Ian. 

Maybe he’s misremembering, but why not? That part of his life is over, and why shouldn’t he talk it up a little? If only to himself. 

So maybe it had been easy. Before he had fucked everything up. Before he had invited Ian over and almost gotten him killed. Before he had kicked him in the face, married Svetlana, and then just let him go. 

Mickey had just let Ian go…

It’s last year, and he’s screaming ‘fuck’ at the top of his lungs outside his own damn wedding, and Ian’s getting dragged away by Lip, but all he has to do is catch up to them and say he’s sorry. He’s so damn  _ sorry _ . Just, please, don’t go. Except, it’s not last year, it’s today, and Mickey never said he was sorry. He just let Ian leave, and instead of a brick wall to punch, it’s the bathroom mirror. It cracks under his fist instantly, no resistance. All the decades it’s survived in this house of degenerates, but it couldn’t survive Mickey.

Nothing good ever can.

*-*-*

“Self-pity doesn’t really suit you, Mick.” Kevin says, but he fills Mickey’s glass and sets it back down on the counter anyways. “You’ve got a kid on the way, man. What could be better than that?”

Blowing his brains out all over this counter, for one.

“Winning the lottery?” Tommy chimes in helpfully, before he can answer.

“Well, yeah, okay. That would be nice.” Kevin concedes, “But what good is all the money in the world if you don’t have a family to spend it on?”

“Spoken like a man who doesn’t know how much babies cost.” Tommy raises his glass like he’s toasting, and Kevin takes it from his hand to fill it. 

“Oh yeah, that reminds me: everyone pay your damn tabs tonight, or tomorrow you’ll be drinking nothing but water.” He says, loud enough for the whole bar to hear, and it’s followed by a collective groan. “I got babies coming. Yeah! Multiple  _ babies _ , and a wife that eats more than a goddamn elephant.

“Don’t tell her I said that though.” He adds conspiratorially, looking at Mickey with a smile that isn’t returned. Instead, he sets his freshly empty glass on the bar again, and asks for another.

“Did you hear what I said about tabs, Mick? I’m being serious.”

But Kevin refills his glass just the same.

“Yeah. Babies. Got it.”

Drink today, make money tomorrow.  _ That’s the Milkovich way _ . Or something like that. Mickey’s too drunk to really give a shit.

Kevin’s wrong: self-pity suits him just fine.

An hour later he’s moved on from beer to whiskey, and from thinking about Ian to talking out loud. To himself - like his father sometimes will if he’s half as drunk as Mickey is now, and has half as many problems - or to Kev, who’s entire job is based on his ability to interpret slurred words. 

“I like, fucking carrot tops. Like, with the freckles, and the pale skin, and… fucking, alien-looking.”

“Well you might just be in luck.” Kevin nods towards the woman Mickey knows has been checking him out for the last half hour. He knows because he saw her when she came in, and has been going back and forth with himself about whether or not he should just go home, or try. Or...will it be weird not to fuck her, now that it’s been pointed out to him that he could? Why shouldn’t he, anyways? Kevin’s right: that’s the best he’s going to do.

Had Kevin said that? Whatever; doesn’t matter. He is going to fuck her, and he is-

_ please god _

-going to have an orgasm that has absolutely nothing to do with Svetlana, and tonight he’ll actually sleep. 

“It’s a quarter to use the bathroom.” Veronica says with a completely straight face as she walks by them carrying fists-fulls of pill bottles. 

“ _ What? _ ”

“You heard me.”

“I have… um. Two dimes and a nickel.” The woman that he’s still not drunk enough to imagine is Ian says as she fishes some change out of her pocket.

“That’ll do.”

*-*-*

But it doesn’t. Not for Mickey, at least. Looking at the woman’s hair doesn’t do it. Taking her from behind like those boys in Juvie - who, at the very least, could make him  _ cum _ \- doesn’t do it. Having her stand behind him and pound his ass is the worst of them all. Some terrible combination of the abstract fear Svetlana still inspires in him sometimes, and the freshly re-opened wound of Ian’s departure. 

If he never has another orgasm, it’ll be exactly what he deserves. 

Worse still, Kevin’s not going to serve him shit if he can’t pay off his tab. 

Worse, and worse still, when he gets home the door to his bedroom is shut, and he can hear Terry and Svetlana behind it. They’re either playing a heated game of Twister, or his wife has moved her part-time bj business into his bedroom and-

“I told you this place was fucked up.” Mickey flinches at the sound of Mandy’s voice. She’s caught him staring at his bedroom door, torn between resignation and disgust. “But you just wouldn’t listen.”

He stares at her, unable to find any words, and after a moment she tilts her head towards her own bedroom door, inviting him in. He follows her, and pulls himself up onto her bed so they can sit criss-cross, facing each other, after she closes the door behind him. 

“You smell like booze,” She starts, but there’s a look on her face that tells Mickey she must want to talk to someone. Maybe almost as badly as he does. “Want some weed?”

He nods and listens while she loads the bong, telling him with a smile that Kenyatta always gets the good stuff. After that it’s just the silence of two people so far in over their heads, normal conversation has pretty much lost its meaning. She hits it first, and then passes it. 

Mickey starts:

“You and Kenyatta seem… happy.”

“Yeah. I think Terry is scared of him. Which is nice.” She says, but this time doesn’t smile. “Are you… I mean, you’re gonna have a baby soon, so that’s kind of cool right?”

It’s obvious she’s trying - they’re both trying - to get along after so much silence and coldness has turned them into practical strangers. So he keeps any anger in check, tries to think of something neutral to say, fails, and shrugs instead.

Mandy wages her own internal battle in the silence, but is less successful than him. Maybe her emotions are just more overwhelming, but instead of shrugging them off, her bottom lip pouts out and her eyes lose their focus on him. She turns her head to the side, but not far enough he can’t see the tears fall down her cheeks and onto her lap. 

This is Mandy. She doesn’t need him to mention it, to comfort her. She’ll stop when she’s ready to stop. 

Sure enough, after a minute the tears dry up, and she looks at him again like usual. Like the world is full of nothing but a bunch of idiots and she’s ready to take them on, one by one. 

“I feel so stupid,” She says when she’s ready to speak again. Mickey’s leaned far off the bed, to set the bong down on the flat carpet, and when he pulls himself back up he sees she’s looking at him closely, curiously.

“We’re friends, right?”

“I’m your brother.” He answers, but when she doesn’t look satisfied, adds, “Yeah, friends.”

“I thought Ian was my friend, but he left, and Lip left. Now we don’t even talk, and I just...” Her voice cracks at the last part, and she wipes at her eyes stubbornly. Glaring at him when she’s down even though the only person she could be mad at is herself, for letting him see her like this.

“Say something!” She says angrily, slapping the comforter by his feet.

Mickey doesn’t know what to say. Talking about Ian? That’s exactly Mandy’s problem. She needs to stop thinking about the people that are gone and just move on. Remembering them is like some awful form of suicide. Slow and endless and no one around you even knows what’s going on. Their best bet is to just forget, and hope one day it will be easier. So, instead he says:

“Remember that day, when mom took us to the water downtown?”

She doesn’t answer at first, maybe annoyed by the sudden change in topic, but eventually she asks, “Which time?”

“I don’t know. Any of ‘em, I guess.”

Mandy leans back against the headboard with her eyes closed, maybe trying to remember, and after a moment says:

“I guess...yeah. It was always so crowded. So many happy people, felt like you could just get lost in another family. Like they’d just pick you up without realizing, and take you home.  _ And _ I remember how nervous mom always got.” She screws up her face and makes her voice shrill, “ _ Mandy don’t run! Mandy, stay with Mickey! Hold hands, you two! _ ”

Mickey can’t remember his mother’s voice anymore, so maybe her imitation is accurate. Either way, thinking about those days has made Mandy smile in a way thinking about Lip and Ian hadn’t. 

“Oh god. I also remember,” She continues, looking at him now. Whatever it is, he wants to hear it, wants to remember too and know those days were real even though they feel impossibly far away now. “The sail boats on the docks. You know what I’m talking about, right? All lined up, with their… you know… sail-holder things, pointing up to the sky. They all looked so different and had their own names. That shit seemed so impossible- to have enough money to buy a  _ boat _ . Fuck, it still seems impossible.”

She scoffs, and her brow furrows, and any of the wonder that was on her face when she was remembering what it was like to see all those boats, lined up and ready to sail at any time, disappears back to cynicism. 

“Why’d you ask me that?”

“Dunno. Think about it sometimes.”

There’s some more silence, but neither of them attempt to fill it this time. After a few minutes, he pulls his arms up to stretch and lets out a sigh. The water bill, electric, gas. All still waiting for his attention. 

“I gotta go,” He says, and she looks up from her phone.

“Wait, you’re leaving?”

“Fucking bills don’t pay themselves.”

“You don’t even work.” She gives him a condescending look, but it falls away as he walks towards the door. 

“For the record,” She says before he can leave, and he waits to hear the rest, “You’re a total asshole, and also, sometimes, I miss talking to you.”

“Get your shit together, Mands. I’m sick of seeing you here.”

“Dick.” She says but goes back to her phone, and he shuts the door to her room behind him. 

Svetlana is in the living room. The door to their bedroom is open, but he walks by without looking inside.

“Get your shit. We’re going to talk to Sasha.”

The woman he chose to marry over a life with Ian startles on the couch when she hears his voice, but Mickey feels nothing for the guilty look on her face.

“I did not know you are home.” 

Mandy was right about the quality of Kenyatta weed, despite everything else he’s been feeling today, he’s more than ready now to take on Sasha.

“Get your coat. We’re leaving now.”

He gets his Glock from the gun cupboard while Svetlana does her over-exaggerated pregnant-woman shuffle to stand up.

“That is bad idea. Sasha kill you for complaining.”

“You maybe, not me.”

“Mickey, I’m pregnant.” She whines, and when he grabs her by the arm to drag her out the door, she pulls back, fighting him. “Enough! I am your wife. You will get job and make money and I will stay home with baby.”

“What kind of wife fucks their father-in-law?” He pulls her close to his face so he can say it low, but he hadn’t meant to say it at all. This isn’t about her, or Terry, it’s about the goddamn bills and keeping a roof over their heads. 

It doesn’t matter either way, because she’s ready for him to bring it up and says immediately, “What kind of husband refuses to fuck his wife?”

“Just get in the car, and we’re going to talk to Sasha. I’ll take care of it.”

“You are nothing. Sasha crush you. Like bug.”

“Great! Either way, your fucking problems are solved. Let’s go.”

He’s thought about it a bit, and in the car he thinks about it some more. Svetlana’s right: he’s not going to be enough to convince Sasha to shell out more cash. He’s just one guy, and this isn’t a one-man job. 

Unions, though. ‘Wankers of the world, unite!’ Tommy had said. He had been joking except,  _ what’s the joke, really?  _ There are more whores in the rub ‘n tug than there are men guarding them, and the more Mickey’s thought about the business itself, the more he’s started to realize that Sasha, and all the other men there, don’t do shit. It’s the girls who provide the service, and the girls who are getting fucked in terms of pay. They just need someone to help them realize they can, and should, demand more. 

A good, old fashioned, union strike. 

He’s pretty sure he saw something like that in a movie once, but can’t remember which one, or how it had ended.

*-*-*

As far as endings go, his day ends with a house full of Russian prostitutes which wasn’t exactly the plan, but also wasn’t  _ not _ the plan. Now that he’s completely sober and actually thinking about it, he’s not entirely sure he had a plan. 

He had gone to the rub ‘n tug to speak to Sasha, but was told Sasha wouldn’t speak to him. Fine, that was expected. The next step was easy: unionize. Gather all the girls together and get them on the same page so that it wouldn’t just be Svetlana demanding better pay. It would be all of them, together.

Easy.

Then he had taken them to the Alibi, for lack of anything better to do, and it’s important to note that at this point he had still just been a guy driving around a too-full car of women for a day while he tried to get his wife a raise. The problem is that at some point between picking up the girls and now, Mickey has become a pimp to five different women, and his wife. Maybe it was at the Alibi, when he realized he had seized the means of production and was now holding all the cards. Maybe it was at the meeting with Sasha - who was not at all who he was expecting - when she had shown him how easy it was for her to get new girls, and he had been left holding none of the cards. Or maybe it’s right now, while Svetlana is screaming at him because he’s taken all of them from their less-than minimum wage jobs without a backup plan. 

Whatever the reason, the Mickey who left the house this morning was - as Mandy so helpfully pointed out - unemployed, and the Mickey who’s standing in the kitchen now is a small business owner. Actually, the whole thing had been pretty easy. Why does anyone even bother with resumes? 

Okay, fine. He’s totally fucked. 

At least now he has something to do with his time that doesn’t involve thinking about Ian, or the fact that his dick is going through one of those spells where it no longer wants to operate, or whatever the fuck is going on between Terry and Svetlana, or even the slow, self-destruct sequence Mandy is putting herself through because her little send-Lip-to-college plan didn’t work out the way she wanted. 

He can’t do anything about any of that, but this is something he  _ can _ put his energy into. 

Exactly according to plan. 

When Svetlana’s done yelling at him, and while she’s distracted with the women in the living room, Mickey slips into their room and goes to the box she thinks he doesn’t know about that’s hidden under all the other shoe boxes in their closet. It’s marked in Russian, and he has no idea what it says, but this is where she keeps all the extra cash she saves for herself while she lies right to his face and says she doesn’t. He found it months ago, while he was looking for extra ammo, but lets her keep her secret because it really isn’t much. No more than a few dollars here and there. Tonight he needs it. At least a hundred and twenty bucks of it to pay off his tab at the Alibi. There’s still plenty left, and if she notices the theft she’ll have to admit her own in order to bring it up with him. 

So he takes her shoebox money - ignoring the voice in his head that sounds a lot like her saying, ‘it’s for the baby’ - and goes to the Alibi for a drink to sooth his aching head. 

When he gets home that night, there’s three women in his bed, two on the couch, and one in the easy chair. Instead of waking any of them, he takes all the unclaimed blankets he can find and curls up in the back seat of the car parked out on the street. The silence of it is incredible; he probably should have done this a long time ago, but even as winter gives way to spring, the night is cold enough he knows he couldn’t have. It’ll be fine for tonight though, and he actually spent a day out of the house that wasn’t completely wasted just drinking at the bar, making him physically tired for the first time in a long time. This time when his hand slides over his dick, it gets hard under his fingers, and when he closes his eyes to feel it, he really does just feel it. 

It’s the best orgasm he’s had all year, and he falls asleep minutes after. The best sleep he’s had in months, maybe ever.

*-*-*


	2. Ian, Come Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mickey's tasked with finding Ian and bringing him home

Season 4; Chapter 2: Ian, Come Home

The noise in the house when he comes back in the next morning is indescribable. He’s gotten used to Svetlana screaming at him in Russian, but that’s in no way prepared him for the sudden influx of five more women who want to do the same. 

It’s almost impossible to yell over them and try to explain that he’s got it all under control. A few more days, and these whores will have all the dicks they can handle, and then some. Svetlana makes no attempt to help him, she’s obviously enjoying watching him struggle even though, thanks to him, all these women’s lives are about to improve. 

He’s the goddamn Mother Teresa of pimps, but if he doesn’t get out of this house right now he’s going to blow a gasket and start shooting holes in the walls. Terry’s walls.

As if he could ever forget. 

Mickey needs a drink, but Kevin told him to cool it on the prostitution talk until he can bring it up with Veronica, and no good will come from pushing. He probably would have brought it straight to her and skipped the middle step, if she didn’t scare the ever-loving shit out of him most of the time. As it is, he’ll just have to wait for Kevin to tell her and be thankful he’s not the one who has to. 

He goes to the corner store for a forty instead. Not the one Linda sold to that Korean couple whose oversized, fluffy dog sleeps next to the door he used to lock up so Ian could do dirty things to him in the back. Not that one. Instead, he goes an extra block to the 7-11 where his fake ID rarely gets checked and, if he goes at the right time of night, he can buy weed from the guy who hangs out at the dumpster. 

No weed today, but that’s alright because he needs to focus. Svetlana might not want to help him, but that’s also alright because Mickey thinks he might actually be onto something here. Not only can he now bank all the profit from her work, he can take a cut from the other girls too. His own business. He thinks about it on the walk home, and feels a sense of relief and purpose so foreign to him lately, he’d almost forgotten it was possible to not constantly feel like a failure. 

“Hey.” 

Mickey’s back on the porch now, enjoying the opportunity for quiet reflection, but when he looks down the steps and sees it’s Lip talking up to him, any feelings of peace disappear. Seeing him brings up a whole new slew of emotions he really doesn’t have time for. 

“Mandy ain’t here.” 

She might be, but Mandy needs Lip back in her life about as much as Mickey needs more women around, telling him what to do. 

“That’s good, because I came to talk to you.”

“The fuck you want?”

“Have you heard anything from Ian?” 

“No.”

“It’s important.” 

Everything that’s happened since Ian left has been important, and none of it has brought him home. 

“So you think I give a shit because I worked with the guy?” 

“You gonna make me spell it out?” Lip asks even though he has no fucking clue what he’s talking about. 

Ian does whatever the hell he wants, and he’s made it pretty damn clear what he wants is to stay away from Mickey. If Lip hasn’t realized that yet, he doesn’t know his brother nearly as well as he thinks he does.

“What the fuck are you getting at?”

“Nothing. I’m just worried about him. That’s all.”

“Well, I haven’t seen him.”

“How hard was that?”

Lip starts to walk away, and Mickey will have all the time in the world to hate himself for it later, but can’t stop himself from asking in the moment:

“He in trouble? What kind of trouble?” He adds when the look on Lip’s face makes it clear he is. 

“I’ll tell you when I find out.”

*-*-*

Maddening. Beyond maddening, in fact. Standing in the shower, under the tepid water, thinking about Ian is starting to make him feel physically ill. He had almost forgotten. Almost forgotten what Ian’s voice sounds like, that exasperated look he used to give Mickey when he did something that annoyed him, the way it felt to kiss him. He almost forgot it all, but now it’s coming back. 

Four years. He had said he would be gone for four years, and Mickey believed him. Of course, Ian had also said they were in love, and look at what a lie that had been. 

Now Ian’s in trouble, and it has absolutely nothing to do with Mickey who’s currently walking into his own bedroom wearing nothing but a towel, only to find two women already in there going through Svetlana’s jewelry. They stop when they notice him, but only to stare. They don’t make any move to leave. 

“I need to get dressed. Fuck off.”

One girl glances at the other one, says something in Russian, and they both laugh. The other girl looks at him and says slowly, as though she’s not used to speaking English, “We want to see your tiny…” She holds her hand up in a fist, but sticks her pinky out, wiggling it, and both girls start laughing again.

“Get the fuck out!” 

He stands clear of the doorway so they can leave, but stops short of actually dragging them out of the room. Mostly because his hands are now gripping the towel around his waist tightly. Their laughter is bad enough without the embarrassment of actually accidentally exposing himself. 

Still, they probably wouldn’t have left if Svetlana hadn’t appeared in the doorway, snapping in Russiain, and waving them out of the room. After they leave, she comes inside and closes the door shut behind her. 

“Can I get two fucking seconds of privacy in my own damn room?”

“It is  _ our _ room,” She snaps at him and sits down on the bed, making it clear she isn’t leaving. “Besides, I already see your tiny penis.”

“Will you stop telling people it’s small? It’s average.” He says, hating the way he has to hop into his boxers under the towel in order to avoid exposing himself to her angry glare. It makes him feel like he’s lost control of his own life. 

“It’s not average. I see many penises. I know.”

“Fine.” He finally has his pants on at least, and can toss the towel into the corner of the room with the rest of the dirty clothes. 

“I tell you to stay out of it, but you ruin everything. Just like always. Now, I have no job, and your tiny dick cannot support us. Even if you know how to use it.”

“I already told you, I figured it out. And, for the record, Sasha didn’t have those girls shipped from Russia in a few hours. The fuck do you think she would have done with all you worn-out whores when she was ready to swap you out, huh?”

Rather than any surprise or gratitude, Svetlana’s scowl deepens. She’s already figured it out too then, and instead of thanking him, or helping, all she wants to do is argue.

“You’re welcome.” He says when she doesn’t answer, too angry to keep from slamming the door shut behind him as he goes out to the living room. 

He’s halfway through a bowl of fruit loops, watching the girls play cards and still thinking about Ian, when the real Mandy reappears after months of more-or-less apathy, and decides she’s finally had enough of Kenyatta. 

Something that sounds expensive shatters from the direction of her room, and when he goes to check it out Kenyatta slams into him, completely naked, dick swinging, and spills Mickey’s fruit loops all over the floor. 

Can’t have anything nice in this house, and also, how the fuck does Mandy get a guy with a dick like that to fuck  _ her _ ?

“This is your fault!” Mandy yells at him without context.

“Mine?”

All he wanted was a shower and some goddamn fruit loops, but he can’t take two steps in his own house without pissing someone off.

Svetlana looks plenty satisfied with his misery at least.

*-*-*

With or without Svetlana’s help, everything is coming together. They’ve got a grand total of seventy eight dollars for start-up costs, and end up spending most of it on lube and hand sanitizer. The mattresses and sheets they get by hitting up all the nearby Goodwill’s, and as soon as the girls start working they’ll make the money up in no time. 

This small business shit is actually alright; he doesn’t know what everyone else is talking about. Especially Svetlana, but she’s always unhappy these days. 

Everything is better for him, at least. Better than it was a month ago, or even just a week. There’s only so many pointless days that can pass before something needs to change, and now, finally something has. Sure, he still needs to figure out a way to get customers to the rub ‘n tug, needs to get Svetlana to chill and stop bitching at him every hour of every day, and needs to pay the late utility bills before the city sends someone to shut off the gas again, but all in good time. 

“You know, Mickey, I think this might actually work.” Kevin says as he counts out the money they’ve made today. It’s a good feeling, having a job finally go right, and Mickey nods in agreement over his beer. “You’re not as dumb as you look, Milkovich.”

Coming from Kevin it doesn’t sound like much of an insult; in terms of intelligence, they’re on equal ground. And he’s right: they  _ should _ be celebrating. Something has actually gone according to plan for once, but the only thing Mickey really wants to do with his victory is tell Ian about it. Except Ian’s not here.

Whatever look this thought puts on his face, it makes Kevin frown. 

“You know, I just don’t get it man. You have a badass wife who works hard to make money, your own business, a baby comin’. What the fuck do you have to be so down about all the time?”

Mickey drains the rest of his beer without answering, and stands up from the barstool, stretching. It’s late now, well past last call, and with any luck Svetlana will already be asleep when he gets home. 

“I dunno…” He says to Kevin while he grabs his scarf off the bar and wraps it around his neck. “Guess I’m just an asshole.”

“I don’t believe that,” Kevin calls out while he walks towards the door. “I don’t believe that for a second!”

Svetlana isn’t asleep when he gets home, but there’s some even better news: Terry got picked up again for a parole violation. Mickey’s avoided pissing him off as his number-one, most-important rule, and having him out of sight, out of mind for the foreseeable future is the cherry on top of this already pretty alright day. 

With Iggy still in legislative limbo, that leaves just Tony and Joey to give him shit, and Mickey can handle them. He can also start sleeping on the couch now if he wants, or even move into Iggy’s room. Anything to get out of his current sleeping arrangement before the baby comes. He’s got a feeling that not being pregnant isn’t going to make Svetlana any less difficult to handle. 

Everyone in the house except for him and Mandy seem upset about this new development with Terry, but he just goes straight to bed. 

Ian, Mandy, Terry, Svetlana, the baby. Someday Mickey will lay his head down on his own pillow and the only person he’ll have to think about will be himself. 

Not today, but someday. 

*-*-*

Unfortunately, the only peace Terry’s arrest brings to the house is inside Mickey’s head. Svetlana’s coworkers have moved into the apartment above the Alibi, but continue to come and go from the house as they please. 

Instead of moving into Iggy’s room, Mickey has just been sleeping in the afternoon and early evening, and leaving the bed for Svetlana at night after her shift has ended. While she sleeps, he stays on the couch playing video games with the volume on mute. Drinking, smoking, catching up with Joey and Tony when they’re around, and worrying about Ian - still MIA according to Mandy - when they’re not. 

Tonight, it’s Svetlana who’s stayed up with him on the couch. It was almost two when she sat down, but that was over an hour ago and she hasn’t said a word this whole time. Mickey hasn’t either, and the only sound in the house is the clicking of the joysticks from the controller in his hand while he plays. 

Even when it’s quiet, still no peace. 

Maybe she expects him to say something, but if that’s the case she’ll have to wait all night; he has nothing to say. Finally she must realize that, because she takes a breath and starts:

“We cannot work on those beds. Already men have complained.”

“So sell that fucking kid in your snatch,” He says without looking away from the tv. “Then maybe you can afford better ones.”

“I cannot work when baby is born.”

“Yeah. You keep saying that shit-”

“ _ The money _ ,” She says loudly, cutting him off, and Mickey hits the pause button so he can look at her. “You make from other woman must go to him. He needs things: clothes, crib, food.”

“Should’ve thought of that before you fucked around and got knocked up.”

“Baby is your responsibility, too. You are father. You must-”

“I said I’d marry you! I never said you could sit on your ass all day while I did everything.”

“Fuck you. I wish I never met you.”

She turns away from him and looks towards the front door as though she can just say something like that and end the conversation. Like she got the final word and doesn’t have to bother listening to his reply.

It does no good to be frustrated; any time he’s ever gotten close to being violent with her, she only gives him a look like that’s exactly what she expected all along.

“No. Fuck you.” He says to her turned face, “You got a house. You got that fucking baby you wanted so fucking bad. So,  _ fuck you _ . If it needs food then work, and buy it, just like everyone else! And while you’re at it, a fucking thank you wouldn’t hurt.”

She stands up when he’s done talking. Easily, with none of the grunts or belly holding she does when someone who might feel sympathy for her is watching. 

“You are like spoiled child. Worse than child. I owe you nothing.”

“Keep telling yourself that.”

“Your father is weak man, too, or he would have just killed you.”

With that, she goes back to their room - or her room, or his, Mickey doesn’t even know anymore - and he goes back to his game. 

Two more headshots until a rare achievement. After that, he’ll switch maps; he’s getting tired of this one. 

*-*-*

Not a single moment of peace.

He’s trying to take a shit in the bathroom the next morning when Mandy bursts in. At first he thinks she’s going to bitch at him on Svetlana’s behalf like she’s done before, but it’s just about Ian. Still missing, still not Mickey’s problem. Except Mandy and Lip seem determined to make this Mickey’s problem, because six months ago he and Ian had a fight and somehow that makes all of Gallagher’s problems his by default. 

One text from Ian, and he would be there - anywhere - but Ian never texts him. Because he doesn’t want to. Mickey just doesn’t know how to convince Mandy of that without revealing how badly he wishes Ian would. 

What he does say, doesn’t convince her of anything. Exactly the opposite actually, because when she does finally leave him to shit in peace - door open, but who in the fucking world has ever taken his comfort into consideration - she’s convinced he’ll take care of it. Just like everything else. 

Svetlana’s in bed, sleeping deeply under the covers from the sounds of her snores, and he walks quietly in the room not to wake her. For the first time in a long time Mickey goes through the  _ maybe, please _ feeling of hope to check the phone charging face down on his nightstand. Only to see there’s no missed calls; no new messages. 

Stupid, stupid. 

A minute after that, Mandy texts him on his current number. 

[ lip saw him a few nights ago at some club called the white swallow but the bouncer kicked him and debbie out before they could talk ]

[ he was working at the bar ]

[ tell him liam is sick because fiona fucked up and frank dying?? ] 

[ they need him to come home ]

[ MAKE THIS YOUR PROBLEM ]

It’s not what he was expecting. Searching for Ian around town, at all their old hangouts, to make Mandy happy is one thing. Because he already knows Ian wont be there. Unlike Lip and Mandy, Mickey got the message loud and clear: Ian doesn’t want to be found by him.

But if he’s got a location, a place where he can go to find him, and Ian really is in trouble, then that’s a whole different story. That’s Mickey actually finding Ian, seeing him again. The two of them, talking. It’s a chance to bring Ian back into his life, and Mickey kind of needs it because he’s starting to suspect that nothing he accomplishes will ever mean anything if Gallagher’s not around to see it. 

He was just supposed to have more time before he saw Ian again. Years. So that the next time they met, and they  _ would _ meet again, they would be different people. Now he’s out of time, and with Ian, it’s always been now or never. 

Mickey’s sick of making the wrong choice.

He can’t make Ian forgive him, or take him back, but he can prove he’s changed. If that’s not enough then at least the next time he’s lying awake at night, he can tell himself he tried. 

At least he will have tried.

*-*-*

He’s getting ready to go, torn between the desire to look like the adult he really should be by now and the possible embarrassment of overthinking all of this, and has finally landed on an outfit that will - hopefully - impress Ian while also making Mickey look authoritative enough to shake down some people if he needs help finding him, when Kevin comes in and tells him he lost all their money. 

For a second Mickey can’t quite believe it.

“You keep that in a fucking keg?”

“I don’t trust the banks.”

“Kev, that’s my money.”

All his thoughts of Ian get momentarily pushed to the side as he realizes Kevin really is telling him they got robbed. Svetlana, who’s been happy to sleep the whole time Mickey paced, dressed, undressed, showered, combed his hair, and dressed again, wakes up immediately at the word ‘money’. 

Now she’s going to complain that it’s not safe for her to work anymore when they both really know what she’s saying is ‘I don’t want to work at all anymore’. Fine, but then that brat she’s about to pop out is going to starve.

“Where are you going?” She asks, like she’s his fucking keeper.

“I have something important to do.”

Something more important than their money, something that’s making his heart race the more he thinks about it. Tracking Ian down and convincing him to go home. It should be easy; he’s done it before with Mandy, but he’s never been this nervous before tracking her down. Never wanted to see her as badly as he wants to see Ian right now. 

Thinking about it is only making the knot in the pit of his stomach worse. He’s only going there to tell Ian Liam is sick and that his family wants him to come back home, and thinking about anything past that is pointless. 

The ride across the city on the L has never felt so long as it does today when every inch the train moves brings him closer to things he should be forgetting, moving past, but can’t. 

His new phone has access to the internet, but he can count on one hand the number of times he’s used it, including today. He copies and pastes the name of the club Mandy sent him into the map engine when he gets off the L, and it shows him it’s about a ten minute walk. At least he brought his heaviest jacket. There’s still snow clinging to the ground in some places, and the air has a chill to it that makes him feel like he wants to curl up on the couch all day and watch something on tv; not schlep his way along the curbs and gutters of the street where every shop’s doorway he passes blows out inviting warm air and a mixture of smells that make him even more anxious to get home to comfort and food. 

There’s no going back home now, though; not without seeing Ian first. 

By the time he’s made it to the nightclub doors, it’s mid afternoon and there’s no sound of music thumping through the doors, no line out front, not even a bouncer. He walks past the stool and velvet rope gate that’s been set aside, and into the double doors enjoying the sensation of the warm air blowing across his cheeks and the tips of his ears. 

Past the doors is a long hallway, dimly lit with framed posters he doesn’t stop to look at lining it, and now the knot in his chest is back and tightening, but it has nothing to do with Ian this time. He’s pretty sure he had a dream like this once, or maybe several times. The hallway is cramped, leading into an open space at the far end that must be the actual club, but before he can get there he’s going to have to walk by those men up ahead kissing, hands exploring, going for each other’s pants, and when he gets past them it’s two more guys talking low with their heads so close their foreheads are touching. They’re looking at something on one of the guy’s phones and it must be funny because every so often they laugh. Beyond that it’s one more man, sitting on the floor carelessly, also holding a phone in one hand and a cocktail in the other. His leg is stretched across the hallway and Mickey has to step over it to go by, but the guy doesn’t even look up at him when he does. 

Inside the main room is just like every other nightclub he’s ever been to. Slow because of the time of day, but still chaotic compared to any bar he would drink at. Like the hallway only multiplied, there’s men in here making out too, getting lap dances from other men, drinking and chatting at the bar. Okay, that one’s pretty normal, but the rest? If he had ever asked Ian to describe his ideal drinking spot it probably would have been something a lot like this. 

He’s glad he took the time to change his clothes and grab that badge before coming here. Aside from feeling horribly out of place in his normal clothes, this doesn’t look like the kind of establishment where people are just going to start talking because he’s asking, and he doesn’t see Ian around anywhere so he’ll probably have to ask. 

Some people, most people, are so dumb their entire idea of respect comes from the clothes you’re wearing, the way you look and talk, how much money you’re willing to spend. Mickey doesn’t understand how people can get so far into life and still think any of those things are a good indicator of whether or not a person is worth your time, but he’s more than willing to use it to his advantage when the situation calls for it. Maybe he shouldn’t think those people are dumb either, because he’s banking on the same trick working on Ian. Ian loves nice things. Things that are well-ordered, well-kept, clean, and purposeful. But Ian also loves Mickey-

Loved

Shit. 

“Looking fine.”

“Fuck off.” It’s some asshole at the bar and exactly the kind of person who would have flat-out ignored Mickey if he had seen him yesterday in his hoodie and unwashed hair. 

This whole place is Ian’s worst side. The side that wants to exist somewhere like this. Somewhere he can be himself, sure, and kiss men to his heart’s content, but that part is just a trap. You can’t ever let your guard down, especially not in places like this that seem so accepting,but only so you don’t recognize that it’s just like the rest of the world. There’s corners and crevices here too where the assholes hide and wait to catch you at any sign of weakness. Mickey’s been caught in moments of weakness before, once or twice, but Ian? Ian walks around like he has nothing to hide. So soft and optimistic, he doesn’t see the giant target painted right on his own back. It’s one thing when he’s being overly emotional and vulnerable around Mickey, but Mickey’s nothing like these assholes. What would they do to Ian, in a moment of weakness?

Suddenly the need to find him, to see him and make sure he’s alright, is more overwhelming than any nerves Mickey was feeling before. 

The fat ‘mo at the bar is asking him if he wants to get out of here as though Mickey is walking around in fishnets with a ‘fuck-me’ sign on his back.

Maybe he shouldn’t have spent so much time combing his hair. 

“You seen this kid?”

He holds up the picture of Ian he’s brought just for this purpose, but it’s a waste of time. The guy points him to the other end of the bar at least, where a man is sifting through clipboards and stacks of paper. Mickey probably could have guessed he was the manager, he has that same look of frustrated resignation on his face Kevin always gets when he’s thinking about the bar’s finances. 

“You seen this kid? His name is Ian.”

“Never saw him before.” The guy says with nothing but a perfunctory glance at the picture. 

Not everyone is so easily swayed by a nice outfit, but luckily for Mickey that’s only his opening trick; he’s got plenty more up his sleeve. 

“Why don’t you take a look again? He used to work here, so I’m pretty sure you have.”

“I can’t keep track of every twink who comes and goes in this place.”

Mickey’s only sure that’s an insult by the tone of the guy’s voice, but the follow-up of tweaker and cocktail slut are pretty obvious, along with the assumption Mickey’s the kind of fag who would buy a drink and get a blow job in this glitter-filled, ecstasy-fueled nightmare idea of a bar. His irritation is inching towards a boiling point it hasn’t reached in a long time. 

This fucker  _ will _ tell him where Ian is because Mickey’s not going to give him a choice. He’s also got a genuine, if stolen, police badge and if he can’t get this guy to spill where Ian is in the next ten seconds, then Kevin is right and he is losing his touch. 

He’s not.

“He’s at our other location, the Fairy Tale, in Boystown.”

“Thank you.”

*-*-*

Now he has to put the name of another club into his phone, take the train again - for a shorter trip this time - and walk along more cold streets while the sun starts setting and he still hasn’t seen Ian yet. At least the map on his phone takes him to the right place, and he doesn’t have to stop and ask for directions to a place he couldn’t even say the name of with a straight face. 

The building the club is in looks just like the surrounding ones, except for the blacked out windows and awning over the entryway where people have gathered to chat and smoke, and the inside is exactly like the last place. Now that night is fast approaching though, there are more customers inside, and even less who look sober. 

He’s ready to see Ian now. He’s had plenty of time to think about what he wants to say, to straighten the creases on his shirt, and brush down any stray hairs. There’s also still a part of him that’s not at all prepared to see Ian, but there’s no amount of time that could help with that. No amount of time that will make the fluttery feeling in his chest go away, or that could stop his heart from pounding the second Mickey finally catches sight of him. 

He has a message from Ian’s family, that’s all. That’s why he’s here.

Ian isn’t working at the bar like Mandy had said. He’s dancing. Not on a pole, on a man’s lap, and something inside Mickey breaks a little, very slightly. He could have guessed by now that growing up means losing little parts of yourself along the way, but no one ever prepared him for what it would feel like watching the people you love have to do the same. 

While Mickey just stands there, the guy under Ian puts a colorful pill in his mouth. 

He’s seen enough. 

“Alright, love birds.” He taps Ian on the shoulder because really this is just like picking Mandy up from their aunt’s place when it’s time for her to come home. Ian isn’t starting a new life like Mickey had pictured this whole time, he’s just hiding. Hiding from his troubles, hiding from his responsibilities, but time’s up and he needs to come home. If Mickey feels any satisfaction at the realization Ian hasn’t accomplished any of his goals, that he couldn’t cut it out there alone, it’s something he’ll have to deal with later, on his own. 

“Get up.” Mickey pushes the guy under Ian out of the way, and he calls him Curtis which might be the lamest stage name ever. Like a cross between an accountant and a gay cowboy. Leave it to Ian to take any chance to be cool and waste it pandering to middle-aged assholes.

_ God he looks so fucked up _

“Twenty-five bucks gets you a dance.”

Mickey wasn’t expecting a friendly hello, but that doesn’t make playing a game of ‘who’s sunk the lowest?’ with his only friend any easier. 

He pays up though. A guy’s gotta eat, and if Ian doesn’t want to talk to him without some incentive, fine. Mickey did get all dressed up after all; he might as well say what he came here to say. If he thought that maybe, just maybe, Ian would be happy to see him then that disappointment is something else he’ll have to deal with on his own later. He’ll add it to the list.

Why not something sweet? Like Butterscotch? Now  _ that’s  _ a stage name. 

Ian makes him stick the money right into the glittery waistband of his booty shorts. 

There’s also a lot of people around, and Mickey’s not stupid enough to think any of  _ them  _ are going to fag-bash  _ him _ , but he will be the crowned champion of sinking to new lows if Ian is just fucking around with him and Mickey winds up with a hard-on in front of all these people. All he’s supposed to be doing is picking up his friend and bringing him home, but it’s going to be difficult to explain to anyone that he’s only here as a favor to his neighbor when he’s pitching a tent in his pants. What’s he going to tell them, that he’s married? How many of these fuckers are too?

“So how’s your day going?” Ian whispers in his ear while he grinds down on his lap. 

“Your family’s worried about you.” He tries, but Ian isn’t listening to him. Maybe it’s just the drugs, but Gallagher’s are serious about family, all of them, and seeing Ian not even blink at the mention of it is worse than all the glitter and feather boas in this place combined. 

“I can’t talk to you like this. Can we go outside?”

But they can’t go outside, and Ian doesn’t want to talk to him any more than he wanted to talk to Lip or Debbie. 

It sucks, but Mickey expected it. Ian doesn’t want to see him now any more than he had on the day he left. So he tells Ian what Mandy wanted him to, that Frank is dying and Fiona fucked up with Liam, then he shows himself out before the bouncer can do it for him. 

*-*-*

Outside, he crosses the street to get away from the small group of people crowded around the club’s entrance.

He told Ian what he needed to, and now it’s time to go.

It’s cold out. Where’s Ian going to go when he’s done with his shift? The possibilities are endless, and Mickey’s got nothing to go on. Maybe Ian’s been shacking up with his co-workers, maybe they let him stay in the club. Maybe he’s paying a weekly rate at some rat-infested motel. If Mickey leaves now, they might lose track of him for good. There’s no point guessing so he texts Mandy while he waits. It’s not even midnight yet, he has plenty of time to decide what he’s going to do and no reason to get back home until he’s sure.

[ found him. won’t talk to me ]

It takes a few minutes before she responds, and Mickey watches the men outside the club. 

[ what did you say ]

[ told him about Liam and frank and he didn’t care ]

Another few minutes pass and still Mickey doesn’t leave. Maybe Mandy’s pissed at him for not getting Ian to listen, but he told her as much this morning. Eventually she does text back, and she’s not pissed or deterred. 

[ I asked lip and he said ians squatting in some house. U can’t leave him there! ]

[ bring him home ] She adds before Mickey can write anything back.

Squatting isn’t one of the options Mickey considered and now he’s starting to wonder what else he hasn’t been considering. Stripping is one thing, but what else has Ian been up to in a club like this. What’s Mickey supposed to do with the knowledge that those bouncers and club managers might be just as happy to sell Ian for a few bucks as he is to let Svetlana do the same? 

[ what house? ] He texts back.

She sends him the address, but Mickey’s not familiar with the street.

Mandy’s wrong: Mickey  _ can _ leave him here. He can leave Ian to the men in that club, to the pills and the lap dances, to the abandoned house where he curls up to sleep at night. Mickey can leave him to all that and go home to deal with his own list of problems, and he probably should. He should because Terry’s gone now, but he’ll be back; he always comes back. He should because if they can’t pay the property tax, they could lose the house. The house he grew up in, where his mother raised him. The house where Mandy lives. He could lose it all and that should be the most important thing to him - it certainly was last year when the idea of leaving home had left him feeling paralyzed and out of options - but tonight it just isn’t. 

Tonight he wants to bring Ian home. Just that one thing, and it’s the only thing he wants to do. 

[ k I’ll get him ]

[ bring him home ]

[ i will ]

[ thank you ]

Now Mandy knows, and the shit he’d get from her if he comes home without Ian is enough of a motivator to make the decision easier. 

He’ll wait for Ian’s shift to be over, and he’ll bring him home. Whatever Ian decides to do after that is up to him. 

*-*-*

It should be sad, it really should be, but Mickey must be some special kind of asshole because when Ian passes out outside the club, all Mickey feels is a sort of self-righteous vindication. A little pity too; no one wants to be the guy passed out in the gutter after a rough night, but it happens. Mostly he just feels kind of grateful. It’s not just him. It’s not just him that can’t find a good job, get his shit together, and who’s always barely getting by. He’s been comparing himself to Mandy, with her boyfriend and her job and it always seems like he’s the one behind, but now it’s Ian too. 

No military accolades, no scholarships, no life-time of career opportunities. After all that, Ian’s life is looking a hell of a lot like Mickey’s, and there’s something so incredibly comforting in that.

God, he must actually be the piece of shit everyone’s always telling him he is. But even that thought can’t take away from the warmth of having Ian next to him in the back of this stranger's car. 

The guy’s offered to give them a ride like a cab, but already seems to have a destination in mind. Forcing Mickey to have one of the most pointless arguments of his life convincing this guy to  _ not _ take them to some random address, and  _ no  _ Mickey can’t change the destination on his app because he’s pretty sure his phone doesn’t have an app for that, and will the guy just  _ please  _ take some of the cash Ian made tonight and drive them somewhere Mickey actually wants to go. Eventually the driver agrees and Mickey gives him the address that Mandy sent earlier. He’d feel bad about promising him the rest of Ian’s money to wait with the car running outside this obviously abandoned house, but he’s only here to get Ian’s stuff and he’d like to think Gallagher will appreciate the thought whenever he manages to wake up - and sober up, but at this point they're pretty much the same thing. 

He might as well be back in that trap house from the last job he pulled with Iggy. The smell is almost exactly the same. It’s dark outside this time so he has to turn on the flashlight on his phone to see around any obstacles as he climbs the stairs. 

It’s fucking freezing in here. All the windows are covered, but it’s done nothing to keep the place warm. Mickey no longer feels self-righteous at all; even pity isn’t quite the right word. What he feels is that he wants to get Ian’s stuff, get the fuck out of here, and never talk to anyone about this ever again. 

This isn’t depressing, it’s…

Fucking awful. 

About halfway up the steps, he notices the sound of heavy snoring coming from one of the rooms upstairs. He can't turn back now, and continues climbing the stairs slowly, even though they creak no matter what he does. 

The snoring is coming from an old woman, curled up on a mess of blankets on the rotting wood floor, and it would be just Mickey’s luck to get shot again because he tried to do something for Ian. He can see Gallagher’s camo army bag just a few feet inside the bedroom door, and he watches the woman the whole time he’s tiptoeing over to grab it. Watching and listening to the sound of her breathing even though she’s an old lady, and he’s the intruder. He gets the bag, glances around, sees nothing else that looks like it might be Gallaghers, and backs out of the room in the same slow motion as he entered. 

After that, he gets the hell out and doesn’t look back. 

Back in the car, he takes the rest of Ian’s money out of his jacket - where he was just keeping it so the guy wouldn’t get any ideas and drive off without him - and pays the driver to take them home. His home where, starting this moment, he’s decided Ian will always be allowed to stay - so long as Terry’s not around - because the alternative is too god-awful to live with. 

And if Svetlana’s got a problem with it, she can move into the apartment with the rest of the girls. It’s not his problem. 

He’ll do whatever Gallagher wants this time, no matter how ridiculous or uncomfortable. He can’t make Ian take him back, but Ian can’t make him stop trying either. Mickey’s not going to give up this time - not after anything - not unless Ian tells him in no uncertain terms to fuck off forever. 

*-*-*

As far as the list of shit he should have dealt with a long time ago but hasn’t, goes, Svetlana’s right at the top. Mickey hates her. If he has to spend one more year with her, he’ll put rat poison in one of her shitty, home-cooked dinners and shove it down her throat. Okay, he probably won’t do that, but he has reached his limit on taking her shit. Terry’s in jail, Iggy too. What’s he even bothering with her for anyways? Kevin gives him his cut of the rub ‘n tug money directly, and if she wants to work, she’ll work for him. End of story.

He fulfilled his end of the bargain, they got married and now she gets to have a baby instead of an illegal abortion in the basement of that spa. 

She’s home now, back from her shift just an hour after Mickey finally got Ian through the door and into bed, but she went straight to the shower as soon as she came in without even looking in the room. Giving him a few more minutes to prepare for her reaction. He has all the reasons in the world to hate her, and needs none of them. If that’s how he feels, that’s how he feels, but they’ve spent so much time together, there’s not going to be anything easy about disentangling their lives now. 

He can see it in her eyes, when she comes back from the shower and sees Ian on their bed, that she knows it too. 

She changes into her pajamas in the bathroom, and he thinks she’ll take the couch, but after a few minutes she comes back, still drying her hair with the towel. 

“I need bed, Mickey.” She says, pointing unnecessarily to her swollen stomach. Whatever feelings she had about this have been efficiently dispatched, but Mickey’s still feeling some of his own deep in his chest. 

“Okay, just give me a sec.”

She doesn’t push it, but there’s no patience on her face as he gathers blankets from the living room, a pillow from his side of the bed, and lays them all out on the floor. When it’s done, Mickey pulls Ian into his arms, thinking any second he’ll wake but he doesn’t. 

“Your father was right. To send him away.” She says while Ian is still in his arms, and Mickey feels one of those rare waves of gratitude for her. This time because her words have made his momentary compassion for her slip away as though it was never there at all. 

He holds Ian and waits; she’s not done yet. He’ll let her say her piece, then he’ll put Ian down, make sure he’s comfortable, shut off the light, and they’ll all settle in for the night. One big, happy family. 

“I am your wife. I love you.” She says it emphatically, like she’s serious, but it’s only because she’s a very skilled liar when she wants to be. He looks her in the eyes, unable to articulate how fucking stupid she must be, if she thinks what they feel for each other is love. She must know though, how ridiculous it sounds, because she can’t meet his gaze for long and looks away. 

He falls asleep sitting up in the chair, leaning against her vanity, still so caught up in the events of the day he dreams about them uneasily. 

*-*-*

In the early morning he wakes with a start. So certain for a moment Ian will be gone that even as he’s looking at him, fast asleep on the floor, he can’t believe what he’s seeing. He just stares for minutes until last night’s dreams fade away and he’s finally convinced this is real. Ian is here, safe. 

He’d feel a lot better about it all if Svetlana wasn’t on the bed, snoring. How had he ever let her convince him she was his problem? Of course, it wasn’t really her, it was Terry. Terry had made it clear that if Mickey was going to come home, he would have to marry her. But Terry isn’t here anymore, and if she was so willing to exploit that to worm her way into his life, she should have been ready for the inevitable fallout when Mickey was free to kick her out of it. 

He’s free now, but not heartless. Terry’s room is empty, and Svetlana’s a smart girl. If she wants to hang around the house and take care of her baby, he won’t stop her. Mickey doesn’t want to think he’s scared of her, but it sure is easier to think all this shit when she’s sleeping. It’s a little more difficult to ignore how much he doesn’t want to wake her when he’s grabbing his wallet and keys off the dresser so slowly and gently they don’t make a single sound. He’s not worried about the two of them waking each other, and gives no more thought to how Ian and Svetlana are going to react to one another than he does to what Mandy is doing today. Why attempt to predict tomorrow's weather, when you could just wait and go outside?

Kevin is already at the bar when he gets there, counting out bills at the register, but there are no customers yet. He pours Mickey a beer, and they chat while the ceiling above them creaks as the girls wake up and go about their own morning routine.

It’s difficult to talk to Kevin about work and money when all he wants to think about is Ian, but Mickey does his best. Word has spread, the way it always does in this neighborhood, eventually, and their little rub ‘n tug business is starting to pick up. Since Kevin lost their first round of cash, he’s decided to split it up at the end of every day. The girls get their cut, Mickey his - two hundred this morning which isn’t bad - and Kevin puts his own percentage right into the till without bothering to make fake receipts. 

Mickey spends the rest of the morning explaining to Kev how he  _ should  _ be laundering the money through his business, and by the time they’ve printed up a lease for the upstairs apartment and Mickey has officially been hired to work ‘security’ for the Alibi, customers have started to trickle in. 

He does think about Ian, pretty much every second of the day, but he also has to think about work. He has to install a new shower head the girls bought for the apartment bathroom, and has to - literally - kick out handsy Jerry Johnson before the girls get so sick of his bullshit they beat him to death themselves. He has to make sure their fifteen minute breaks don’t turn into hours, has to rearrange some of the curtains so the two Irina’s are as far apart as possible because otherwise they’ll argue, and - though it’s not technically part of his job, he just does it because Veronica tells him too - every few hours he takes the bucket from the backroom under the ceiling leak and dumps the grimy water in the back alley. 

While he does all this, he thinks about Ian. It’s kind of amazing how much he just wanted to look at Ian last night, to rememorize every inch of him, and rebuild his own mental image of Gallagher. Now when Mickey thinks about him, he can remember how Ian had looked: peaceful and sleeping. He doesn’t have to picture that awful night, his wedding, or the day Ian left. 

By the time Svetlana finally shows up for her shift, Mickey’s already put in a full day’s work, and then some, but plans to stay a few hours more just the same. She doesn’t look very happy to see him, but the feeling’s mutual. Especially after she tells him she kicked Ian out of  _ his _ house as though she’s suddenly been made queen of the fucking place. As though he hasn’t spent all day with the idea that when he gets home, Ian will be there waiting for him. 

“Who’s orange-boy?” Kevin asks later when Mickey’s finishing his last beer and taking his cut for the day. Before he can come up with an answer, Veronica gives Kevin a less-than-subtle kick under the bar and looks at Mickey kindly.

“Whoever he is,” She says, “I imagine  _ his _ sister might have texted  _ her _ best friend who might then know he is currently back at home.”

“What in the goddamn hell are you talking about, woman?” Kevin asks, but Mickey is already pulling his scarf on and walking away, and he doesn’t hear her reply. 

*-*-*

It’s dark and cold out when he reaches the Gallagher’s. He’s gone home already to check, but Ian’s stuff is gone and it doesn’t look like he plans on coming back. Instead of going in their front door where anyone in the neighborhood might see him, Mickey slips in through the Gallagher’s back door where he runs into pretty much the entire family standing around the kitchen eating dinner. 

“Is Ian here?”

“He’s upstairs.” Fiona says, and it’s not quite an invitation but close enough. 

Ian’s in his bedroom, scribbling in a journal, and he only glances up briefly to see it’s Mickey before going back to it. 

They don’t get more than a few sentences into a conversation before the kids come upstairs to see Ian, and Mickey has to wait while they say their hellos. You’d think Ian had actually gone to war the way they greet him, instead of just spending his nights in Boystown guzzling cum. 

“You coming back?” Mickey asks when the rest of the family finally leaves, meaning to his place; where Svetlana definitely doesn’t get the final say on who gets to live there. At least Ian’s not rolling now, but that only gives Mickey less of an idea how this conversation’s going to go. 

“Depends...will you suck my dick whenever I want?”

“Fuck off.”

It sounds like a joke, like Ian’s about to follow it up with a more reasonable demand - ‘kick Svetlana out’, for example - but he just goes back to his journal with a shrug. 

Mickey watches him, tries to engage him again, but gets the same cold shoulder he had last night at the club. 

On-demand blow jobs for a second chance at ‘them’. Him and Ian with their pants off, touching each other. No pointless conversations about love and feelings. Just them, proving how they feel to each other in the only way that’s ever really worked for them. 

“I’ll do it.”

Can he suck dick well enough to make Ian take him back while the rest of the Gallaghers eat dinner downstairs? There’s no way to know until he tries, and Mickey’s not afraid to find out. 

Ian makes no move to help Mickey get his pants off, just pushes his hands against the mattress and leans back; pliant, but frustratingly distant. Mickey gets the belt and zipper undone, then has no choice but to wiggle the pants down one inch at a time until Ian -still not helping - starts to smile like he’s enjoying every second of the frustration he’s causing. 

“No, it’s fine. Just sit there and don’t help.”

“You know, usually when people are giving blow jobs they don’t talk.”

“Yeah, well. You would know.” 

Ian snorts at the ridiculousness of that comment when Mickey’s the one on his knees, but finally lifts his hips up enough that his boxers and pants can be pulled all the way off. If he’s concerned about his siblings walking in, he doesn’t mention it. 

Mickey pauses, takes his time, and looks. If he hasn’t earned that right, it doesn’t matter because he does it anyways, just like last night. He looks at Ian’s legs, pale and with hair so blonde it’s difficult to see, and at his thighs where they press against the mattress. Ian could never lose enough weight, or gain enough muscle, that he wouldn’t be at least a little soft right there. 

And he has too. Lost weight. Enough to make his hip bones stand out, enough to make the few yellowing bruises Mickey can see on his knees and thighs look worrisome. He’s not going to mention it though. It would be pretty damn hypocritical of him to criticize the way Ian’s living, or what he’s had to do to get by, and after seeing that house Ian was living in Mickey doesn’t want to talk about any of it. Preferably ever. Better to just be together again, and let everything that happened in between fade away.

Ian’s right, anyways, Mickey’s supposed to be giving a blow job, not talking. If he hasn’t had a dick in his mouth since the last time they did this, or even remember exactly when that was, that’s his problem, not Ian’s. 

It’s like riding a bike. Well, Mickey never learned how to ride a bike but still, it might be. He knows how to hold Ian’s dick, how to stroke it, how to rub his thumb up against the most sensitive parts, and - from his own experience - which parts of his palm are the roughest and where they feel the best. None of that has changed in the time they’ve been apart, and when Mickey takes Ian into his mouth, nothing about that has changed either. He can still tease him with his tongue at the start when he’s more interested in making Ian gasp in pleasure than he is in setting any sort of rhythm. He can still take him just as deep, right up to the point where it’s almost too much to handle, and stroke the parts he can’t fit into his mouth lazily while he does it. 

Ian still does that thing where he digs his hands into the mattress when it feels good, and knowing he’s turned on still turns Mickey on in a way that would have been impossible to imagine just two days ago. 

It’s just too good not to savor, especially now that Mickey knows what it’s like to go without. Ian will just have to learn his own lesson in patience while Mickey pulls off every minute or so because he likes to see spit trailing from his lips to Ian’s dick. It’s one of those things that seems gross until you’re actually doing it, and then it’s the hottest thing ever. 

The third or fourth time he does this, Ian lets out a frustrated groan, but the way his arms are trembling betrays him. 

“Just take a picture already.”

“Got a camera?” Mickey asks, even though he’s not supposed to be talking. 

“If you don’t hurry, someone’s going to come in here.”

“So? I’m not the one with my dick out.”

“ _ I know. _ ”

He’s not in the best position to be acting like a tease, so the next time he takes Ian in his mouth, he does it in earnest. Moving his head and his hands in tandem, picking up the pace until Ian can’t stand it and leans back, and rests his head against the window. He doesn’t make any attempt to hide how good it feels. One of his legs pulls off the floor and presses against Mickey’s side. This is followed by several encouraging noises that go straight to Mickey’s own dick and convince him to keep up the pace without stopping again. 

Neither of Ian’s feet are on the floor by the time he comes; they’re wrapped around Mickey, pressing into his back. Ian doesn’t warn him either. Instead, he moans - a deep, natural sound - and lifts his hips off the bed pushing a little too far into Mickey’s throat for comfort. Not that he’s complaining. Not when, after countless fantasies about it, he’s finally made Ian cum again. Not one of those surprising, instantaneous orgasms either. A good one, the kind that makes your toes curl and feels like it’s being dragged out from somewhere deep inside you.

From the looks of it, anyways.

While Ian catches his breath, Mickey swallows; it would be pretty rude to spit on the floor when Liam’s crib is there, just a few feet to his right. 

He both is and isn’t thinking about his own dick. The whole point of this was to make Gallagher happy, but it’s difficult to ignore the feeling of it pushing against the fly of his jeans. Ian sprawls back onto the bed so he can scoot into his pants and boxers again, and Mickey stands up too. Waiting, but not entirely sure what for. 

“Jesus Christ, Mickey.” Ian says, running his hands through his hair. Short on the sides still, but longer and burgundy on top. “Your wife show you how to do that?”

That hurts, and not in the way any of the typical insults they throw around do either. It pushes any ideas about Ian reciprocating out of his mind. 

What does Ian know about forcing yourself to sit through a blow job you don’t want, from a person you can’t stand? Nothing, hopefully. Which is why Mickey should just laugh the comment off, but his throat doesn’t want to laugh right now. Not even a single, fake one, and he’s not clever enough to hide the hurt on his face before Ian sees it.

“Shit. I didn’t mean to say that.”

“It’s fine.”

It is. Mickey’s the only one responsible for the current mess of his life, not Ian. 

“No, that was… I still think about it all the time. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have-”

This isn’t at all the direction Mickey wanted the conversation to go in, and he’s nothing but grateful for the interruption when Lip opens the bedroom door.

“What?” Ian says to him sharply.

“Can I speak to my brother for a minute?”

Lip’s looking at Mickey when he says it, but it’s Ian who answers again. 

“Can it wait?”

“Not really.”

“It’s fine. Any food left?”

“Sure, Mickey. Why don’t you just help yourself?” Lip says in a tone that makes it clear they have some unfinished business of their own to sort out.

“Fuck it. We’re going to Mickey’s place anyways.” Ian says, still sounding angry at the interruption.

“The hell you are. You just got back and we need to talk about the shit you pulled. It’s not a joke Ian, you’re in serious trouble.”

Whatever else Ian’s done, at the very least he’s AWOL from the US army, and hearing Lip talk like that fills Mickey with a fresh sense of dread. 

But Ian’s not going to want to hear it, and there’s no sense antagonizing him after they just got him back. Lip must realize it too, because before Ian can speak he starts again, in a more placating tone. 

“There’s plenty of food downstairs, Mickey. Have as much as you want. You can both stay here tonight.”

Ian hesitates and Mickey takes the opportunity to say that sounds fine, and he’ll bring up some food in a minute. Then he leaves the brothers alone because if anyone can talk sense into a Gallagher, it’s usually a member of their own family. 

Downstairs, the younger kids are gathered around the TV now, and Fiona is in the kitchen scooping leftovers into tupperware and writing names on the tape across the lids. 

“Think I can get some of that?”

“Hmm? Oh, yeah, sure. Does Ian want some too?”

“Yeah. Said I’d bring some up for him.”

“Okay.”

And with no further comment she starts undoing her previous work: pulling food out of the containers, putting it on a plate, and microwaving it for him. 

“Looks good.” He says when she sets the plate down in front of him on the kitchen counter.

“I’ll leave Ian’s here. Lip told me what you did, bringing him home.” She looks at him with gratitude her words don’t quite convey, but saying ‘thank you’ isn’t one of the lessons people tend to learn around here. “You can stay as long you want.”

“Oh yeah? That’s not what Lip said.” He’s not complaining, just making conversation between bites of the first meal he’s had all day. 

“Well, despite what he may think, Lip’s not actually in charge around here.”

“Good to know.”

He eats while she prepares Ian’s food, then finishes up putting everything away. After that, she tells the kids bed time’s in an hour and receives a chorus of groans in return.

It’s nothing like his house ever was, even when his mother was alive.

He’s about to go out on the back porch for a smoke when she stops him. 

“With Lip home now there’s no extra beds, but Ian’s is probably big enough. Or, you know what,” She backtracks quickly when he makes a face. “I’ll just get some blankets and you can sleep wherever.”

On the porch, alone in the chill and the dark, it’s impossible not to compare: his life and Ian’s, his home and this one. Sleep on Ian’s bed.  _ He can do that here. _ It should be nothing but good, knowing that, but what it actually makes him feel is a vague kind of sadness. A sadness that goes beyond his current situation and stretches back through all the years before it. Regret for a life he never got to live, and still can’t. He can stay here tonight sure, but tomorrow, nothing has changed. This isn’t his home. 

_ Self pity doesn’t suit you _

He hears Kevin’s voice in his mind and knows now that he was right. Who gives a fuck about any of that anyway? Hadn’t he told Ian he would bring up his dinner? He better do it now before Gallagher decides to come down himself. 

When Mickey goes back inside, he sees Fiona has left him a stack of blankets on the dining table with Ian’s dinner on top. He’d thank her but she’s in the living room arguing with Carl about finishing his movie before bed, and it doesn’t look like she wants to be interrupted. So he brings all the stuff upstairs instead, and finds Ian alone in his room, the door open. 

He’s writing in his journal again. 

“Brought you dinner.”

“Thanks. What are all the blankets for?”

“Me. I guess. We staying here tonight?”

“Probably should. Sounds like the kids really missed me.”

Mickey nods, gives Ian the plate off the top of the stack so he can set the blankets down, and sits on the bed. Ian puts his journal away this time and looks at him. 

“Did you miss me?” He asks, and Mickey can’t help but laugh. Not a humorous one, more of an exasperated ‘ha!’.

“Maybe. Can’t remember. Think you got the market cornered on popping pills?”

“I’m being serious. Why are you here? Why aren’t you with her?”

It feels like Ian must be just teasing him again, even if that’s not what his eyes are saying. 

Mickey gestures vaguely, tiredly, in no particular direction. What the fuck is he supposed to say to that? Ian doesn’t look very satisfied with his non-answer so he searches around for something else to say and finally settles on: “Fuckin’ hate that bitch.”

Ian stares at him for a few moments in that way he sometimes does when he’s not convinced Mickey’s telling the truth. 

“She didn’t, I don’t know, win your heart with warm food and…? She’s just so- Maybe she’s your type. Fuck. I don’t know.”

Seriously, what the fuck is going on inside Gallagher’s head? He’s staring out the window now and even if Mickey could think of something to say, he wouldn’t. It wouldn’t feel right, disturbing him when he’s so deep in thought. After a long pause, Ian continues:

“I used to think, maybe, you’d come find me or something.”

“In the army? After you told me to stay the fuck away from you?”

“You never thought about it even once?”

“Just... _ fuck. _ ” Maybe there’s something in Mickey’s voice when he says it. Maybe it’s the way he presses his palms against his ears like a child, unwilling in the moment to hear any more. Whatever it is, Ian falls silent again and it gives them both another minute to think. For once, it’s Mickey who’s ready to speak first. He holds his hand up indicating Ian should stay silent until he’s finished. 

“You had my number, and I fuckin’  _ waited  _ for you to call. And if you think I give a shit about Svetlana, you’re as crazy as she is. And-” For a second it looks like Ian’s going to interrupt, but Mickey holds up his hand again and keeps talking. “ _ And  _ I did fucking find you. The second I knew where you were. All you ever had to do was send  _ one fucking text. _ ”

Now he’s done. When Ian’s sure he’s finished talking, he replies:

“I guess I thought it would be more romantic you know, if you just found me.” 

He can tell by the look in Ian’s eyes that he’s only half joking, but getting all that off his chest has made Mickey feel lighter. This time when he laughs it’s a happy sound, or at least as close to one as he’s made in a long time. After a second Ian joins in, and this is only an intermission to the conversation, but it feels good to get out. 

When they’re done, Ian rubs his eyes. He looks over Mickey’s shoulder as he talks, remembering: “I thought about you. All the time. I was so angry and I just kept picturing the two of you here, falling in love. You, forgetting me. How could you do it, Mick? How could you marry her? I’m being serious. I need you to tell me why you did it.”

It’s so far down on his list of things he wants to talk about, Mickey almost considers attempting to change the topic, but he’s starting to get the awful suspicion he just lost months of his life with Ian because of miscommunication. Just last night he watched Ian sleep and promised himself he was ready to change; that this time things would be different. If he goes back on that promise already, he really does deserve whatever hell life throws at him. 

It’s just... _ Ian was there _ . He saw Terry react to them, knows better than anyone except maybe Mickey what’s waiting for them outside this bedroom door. What more can he say than that? What are they even talking about right now if not that? 

Ian doesn’t go back to his journal even as Mickey hesitates, so maybe that’s a good sign. 

“You were fucking  _ there _ .” Mickey says, and he can tell by the look on Ian’s face that he doesn’t need to elaborate. They both know what he’s talking about. “The fuck else do you need to know?” 

“I don’t...that’s not…” 

There’s something comforting watching Ian to struggle to find the right words too. It’s one thing to  _ want _ to communicate more, and another to actually do it in the moment, but if Ian is struggling too then maybe this isn’t a Mickey-problem. Maybe it’s a  _ them _ problem, or an everyone problem. 

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to say to that.” Ian finishes lamely.

He can join the fucking club. 

Mickey considers saying that out loud, but can’t imagine it scoring him any points.

“After that I just had to.” He says instead.

“Had to what?”

“Marry her.”

“ _ Why? _ ”

It’s a fair question, but also the answer seems so obvious he can only imagine Ian just wants to hear him say it out loud. He married her…

“Because Terry fucking told me to.”

It’s not the right thing to say. Ian puts his untouched dinner on the nightstand and stands up so he can pace irritably. 

“So Terry tells you to do something and that’s it? You just do it?”

“It’s not that simple.”

“If he told you to kill me, would you do it?”

“What? No!”

“How would you even know, Mickey? Where’s the line? Maybe there isn’t one.”

“You’re not listening.” Mickey says quietly. There’s no point arguing with Ian, yelling at him. That never makes things anything but worse. 

Ian stops pacing and looks at him, but it’s difficult to read his expression because one of his hands is covering his eyes like he’s trying to think. Or trying not to look at Mickey.

“I’m listening.” He says, but it sounds resigned. Like he’s not convinced at all Mickey’s going to say something worth listening to. 

“By the time I got home, they were all just waiting there.”

“Who?”

“Her, Terry. Fucking Iggy and Joey. Some Russian guy. They basically own her…well, not anymore, but without her passport lot of fucking good-”

“When?” Ian cuts him off. Probably for the best, he was starting to ramble, but he doesn’t have a good answer to that question. He gestures vaguely to indicate to Ian he’s unsure, then asks:

“When’d you find me? In the chapel?”

“The chapel? What chapel?”

“You know. On that building, at the top.”

“Oh. I don’t know, a week later? Maybe two.”

“After that.”

After that, Mickey had left Angie’s and gone back to his place, and had agreed to marry Svetlana because that’s what you do when pregnant girls and angry adults are in the kitchen when you come home. That’s not even including the possibility of returning to his own bed, and the fact that he had no idea how to live on his own. He just couldn’t; not like Ian had. 

“And you came home, and they were all just there...what? Waiting for you say you’d marry her.”

“Basically. She was pregnant. The fuck was I supposed to do?”

“Mickey, that’s so fucked up.”

After he says it, Ian comes and sits back down on the bed again. 

“I heard about your wedding, like, two weeks after I saw you. How did she know so fast? How the fuck does she know it’s yours?”

“Because it’s not?” Mickey sounds too flippant when he says it, for this conversation, but he’s kind of dying for more levity; a little less seriousness. Ian doesn’t take the bait, doesn’t smile, but he does recline a little on the bed and it’s nice feeling like he’s not going to suddenly get up and walk away if Mickey says the wrong thing. 

“You never met her before that?”

“Once.” He concedes, but when Ian looks unhappy with his answer, he adds defensively. “She worked at the rub ‘n tug.” 

“Where you went, to get blow-jobs and hand-jobs from women?”

“One fucking time, and-” 

He cuts himself off before he can say  _ and Terry made me _ because Ian won’t want to hear it, but what other explanation is there?

“So, she jerked you off. Then she...and then she was pregnant. And then you had to marry her.”

“Yeah.” 

He can’t tell if Ian thinks it makes sense. Hell, it barely makes sense to himself most of the time, but at least it’s the truth. 

“Why didn’t you ever come find me? Why did you beat the fucking shit out of me, Mickey?”

“Thought I’d just- I fucking wanted you to stay away.”

“Why?”

“The fuck kind of good am I, for you?”

He  _ wants _ to say it so he forces himself too. Even when the words make his throat feel tight. There’s nowhere to look that Ian won’t be able to see his face, so it’s his turn to stand up. Not to pace, but to turn around and lean his head against the side of the bunk bed until he’s certain he’s not going to do something stupid like cry in front of Ian. 

“That’s not an answer.” Even with his back to him, Mickey can hear a smile behind the words.

He turns around rubbing his face - not for tears, it’s just comforting - and once again can do nothing but wave his hand and hope Ian can interpret the things he can’t say.

“Why’d you leave?” Mickey asks, but should have waited another few moments before speaking; his voice comes out with a waver there’s no way Ian doesn’t hear. Gallagher sighs, lays even further back on the bed, and covers his face with a pillow in a way that’s endearing. Except, Mickey’s done his fair-share of talking, and it’s time for Ian to answer for his own crimes now. He crosses the room and grabs the pillow before Ian can react, and hits him lightly in the face with it before tossing it onto the floor.

“Why’d you leave?” This time when Mickey says it, his voice is level. 

“Because fuck you. That’s why.”

Mickey lets out a snort and probably would have let it go, but Ian amends his answer without any prompting. 

“Because I can’t watch you be happy with someone else.”

“Damn, Gallagher. I’ll do my best to be miserable from now on. Keep you happy.”

“Tell me you’re miserable without me.” Ian’s laying down, but he’s looking so Mickey flips him off. “Just say it.” 

“I’m miserable...”

“Without me.”

“...without you”

Ian nods like he believes him, then rubs his hands over his face too, maybe trying to comfort himself as well.

“Me too, Mick. Me too.”

Mickey sits back down on the bed and Ian sits up so they can look at each other again. 

“Wanna tell me about it?” 

“No.” Ian says immediately, like he has no desire at all to share with Mickey what he’s been doing since he left. “Tell me what you’ve been doing.”

“Started a business, with Kev. I guess. Running a rub ‘n tug upstairs at the Alibi.”

“What?” Ian laughs a little like he thinks maybe Mickey’s joking.

“Yeah. It’s alright. Svetlana and a few other girls.”

He shrugs. There’s not much else to say about it.

“So you’re pimping your pregnant wife out for handies at the Alibi?”

“Cool, can I get one?” It’s Carl, standing in the doorway with his toothbrush in one hand.  
“Sure, fifty bucks.”

“Mickey!” Fiona appears in the hallway too, carrying Liam, just in time to scold him.

“What? That’s how much it costs.”

“Girl in my class said she’d do it for ten.”

“Who said that?” Fiona asks in an ‘I’m going to tell her mother’ kind of voice and Carl’s smart enough to make himself scarce in the direction of the bathroom before she forces an answer.

“Ian, can you get Liam ready for bed?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“You didn’t eat your dinner.”

“Just not hungry.”

“Okay, I’ll put it in the fridge in case you want it later.”

And so on and so forth. The Gallagher’s have an endless stream of mundane thoughts to say to one another before any of them can actually get into bed, let alone fall asleep. 

A few minutes later, while Mickey’s laying out the blankets on the floor, Carl comes back in and offers his bunk in exchange for a freebie at the Alibi. This time, Mickey grabs him around the neck playfully and gives him a noogie. An indignity he’s had to suffer many times at the hands of his older brothers, but he’s never had a younger brother of his own to repay the favor and Mandy’s not exactly the best substitute. 

“Okay, lights out!” Fiona calls from the hallway and Mickey releases Carl. He’d rather sleep on the floor anyways, less of a chance of Ian sneaking out in the middle of the night. 

“Goodnight everyone!”

“Goodnight Fiona.” Ian and Carl say together, and though he can’t hear it, Mickey imagines Lip saying the same thing from his own room. 

Then the hallway light goes off, and Mickey turns the bedroom light off too before laying down on the blankets in the dark. 

For a few minutes everything’s quiet, then Ian shifts a little on his bed and Mickey doesn’t have to look to feel him above, hanging slightly off the bed.

“Goodnight, Mickey.” He whispers, and lays back down when there’s no answer. Better to let him think he’s the only one awake. Better for Mickey to stay silent and keep the way that sentence made him feel a secret. He’s exposed enough of himself tonight. He can have this one thing.

*-*-*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm glad to finally have Ian back now :) And super excited for all the small, domestic things they do together this season! Thank you again for all the support and I hope you enjoyed!!


	3. Cashbox Bodies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mickey follows Ian to work and they get invited to an after-hours party

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long, life's really been catching up to me lately. But here it is a new chapter, followed (hopefully) shortly by more chapters :)

Season 4; Chapter 3: Cashbox Bodies

The ruckus of this family’s morning routine is unlike anything Mickey’s ever heard, and just a few weeks ago he was living in a house with ten other people. 

He wakes up around the time Ian is stepping over him to get to the bathroom, but is too groggy from his night on the floor to actually want to get up. After that, Lip comes in to get Liam, and the child goes through what seems like all the different stages of grief before finally accepting it is morning and time to start another day again. At this point, he’s got the pillow over his head, but it doesn’t come close to drowning out the sounds of Carl and Debbie’s argument over who’s the biggest shithead; which he missed the beginning of, but is not at all convinced he would have understood it even if he hadn’t.

Ian has no sympathy at all, and kicks Mickey’s feet out of the way so he can get the clothes out of his dresser. Outside the room, another argument is fought and lost, and Fiona starts up her noisy blow dryer in front of the hallway mirror instead of the bathroom. 

Lip has to practically yell over the noise of it to ask Ian if he’s seen Liam’s shoes. 

Every time Carl seems ready to go downstairs for good, he remembers something he’s forgotten and has to climb back onto his bed, dismounting it a few seconds later with a loud thump. 

The second time he hears Debbie and Fiona argue about space, Debbie wins again; that girl is a force of nature.

It feels like at least hours before they’re all downstairs and everything falls relatively quiet. By then, Mickey’s head is pounding and the likelihood of him falling back to sleep is next to none.

At least now the bathroom is empty, and he can do all his morning business in peace. After a night spent sleeping on the floor, and a wake-up like that, there’s no reason the reflection looking back at him in the mirror should be anything but the same haggard one he’s seen since last year. Except, it is different. Not his hair - sticking up in an unwashed mess like he’s back in junior high and ten days out from his last bath - or his expression, which is as dour as always after all that early morning noise. It’s mostly in his eyes. He wouldn’t have said yesterday that they were blank, but today he knows the truth because he can see the difference. 

Today, he’s Mickey Milkovich and he’s got shit to  _ do _ . 

From down the stairs comes the sound of Ian singing energetically.

It’s a good thing he  _ feels _ different today, because when he gets downstairs Mandy is there, waiting to draw him right back into his old life. 

She’s going to the  _ hospital,  _ and says it as though Mickey should accompany her there to watch a whore perform the magic trick of pushing something  _ out _ of her vagina, instead of the other way around. 

“It’s not my fault that bitch got knocked up.” He says when Mandy won’t let it go. 

She calls him an asshole and leaves, and from the table Ian gives him a cheeky ‘congrats’ as if he finds this whole situation humorous now. Maybe it is, and Mickey’s just in a little too deep to see the joke. 

Either way, he’ll take cheeky Ian over distraught, disappearing Ian any day.

Once the second whirlwind of Lip and the kids leaving has passed, he pours a cup of coffee and gets a casual invite to a second night of watching Ian work a stage for money. His sarcastic comments fall on deaf ears, but it’s hardly surprising. Stripping is good money, minimal risk - even less, with Mickey there watching him - and Ian’s got the looks for it. Why shouldn’t he take advantage? Mickey tries, but in the end can’t think of a single good reason that’ll convince Ian not to. It’s not like his own pocketbook is currently overflowing, and he can’t expect Gallagher to stay home with nothing from him but a handful of lint and IOU’s. 

“Do you think she’ll be okay?” Ian asks over his cup of coffee. Mickey’s looking towards the front door where Fiona’s just bolted with the kid’s forgotten lunches, and misunderstands the question. 

“On house arrest? Are you kidding? I wish.”

“No, not Fiona. Svetlana.”

“What? She’ll be fine. She’s having a kid. Loads of chicks do it; can’t be that hard.”

“I guess. Women still die, sometimes.” Ian says with a shrug, and Mickey could repeat his previous thoughts about Fiona’s house arrest but stops himself. Wishes are more likely to come true, after all, if you don’t say them out loud. 

“She’ll be fine.” He repeats instead, and Ian goes back to his coffee like he’s more than willing to drop it.

“How’s your um...pimping?” He asks conversationally, but before Mickey can answer, Fiona - back now, brown lunch bags still in hand - interrupts. 

“Who’s pimping? Ian, you’re not…” She says. Pretty judgmentally too, considering she was the one asking him for money just a few minutes ago. 

“No, it’s Mickey. He’s running a rub ‘n tug. At the Alibi.”

“Excuse me? Does Veronica know about this?”

“I’m pretty sure she’s the one that told Kev all that bullshit about a thirty-seventy split.” Mickey answers.

“Christ.” Fiona says, “Since when does everyone have to whore themselves out just to make a buck?”

Ian leans back in chair, arms behind his head, and shares a look with Mickey.

“Since forever, sis. Where have you been?”

She sighs, takes Ian’s empty coffee mug off the table, and fills it for herself.

“I don’t know… I just wanted to sell cups.”

*-*-*

There’s still construction going on in front of the bar, so Mickey goes in through the back. He’s not necessarily avoiding Kev and V, but if one more person brings up babies or hospitals to him, he might snap. Better it’s at one of the girls than the people who are now technically his landlords. Better he save his anger for where it can be productive; like telling Irina to put down the nail polish, stop ignoring customers, and get back to work. Better to hear her say something he can’t understand to one of the other girls, than to take shit from Tommy and Kermit downstairs. 

“I can’t understand you!” He says, somewhat triumphantly. “You got shit to say, say it in English.”

“Fine,” Irina answers, still holding the goddamn nail polish. “You are pussy, and your mother weep to look at you.”

“Then I guess it’s a good fucking thing she’s dead. Just like you’ll be, if you don’t fucking get back to work.”

His threat only makes the two girls laugh. At the same time, a man walks out from one of the curtains still adjusting his pants, and gives Mickey a look like he should be embarrassed having all these women laugh at him. As if he doesn’t already know that.

“Keep walking shit-for-brains. I’m not the one who’s gotta pay for it.”

The guy flips him off and goes down the stairs. 

“Don’t insult customer.” Irina says in a fake, high-pitched tone. Mocking, Mickey’s sure, something he’s said to them in the past.

Maybe he should have just gone through the front after all. 

“Okay.” He says, and walks up to Irina the way he would walk up to anyone he’s about to get in a fight with. He wants to impress upon her the importance of  _ just fucking listening to him _ , but doesn’t feel very good at all when she flinches away from him. Actually, it makes him feel like a total douchebag; which is slightly worse than the embarrassment from before. Of course, that’s exactly why they don’t listen to him, but it’s not like he’s going to start smacking them around just to make a point.

Yet. Maybe someday though, Christ.

Instead of giving her the slap she looks like she’s expecting, he takes the nail polish out of her hand, carries it to the other end of the room, wrenches the window open, and tosses the bottle onto the street below. 

“You can paint your fucking nails after work! And for fuck’s sake at least pick a color that doesn’t make your hair look like shit.”

*-*-*

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing, man?”

“What?”

“It’s just, business has been kind of slow, and with that money that got stolen…”

“How was that my fault? You were the one here when that happened!”

“Well your job is security! You should have anticipated something like that. Also, frankly, I don’t think the girls like you very much.”

“What fucking girl likes her pimp?”

“I don’t know man. But I hear them say your name a lot, and it doesn’t sound like they’re saying nice things.”

Mickey drinks his beer sullenly and doesn’t reply.

“Also, hey, where’s your wife? Didn’t see her come in today.”

“At the hospital. Having the kid, I guess.”

“Are you fucking serious? Then what the fuck are you doing here?”

“Working. Didn’t you  _ just _ say I gotta be better at my job?” 

“Not when your wife’s at the hospital having your fucking baby!”

Mickey waits to reply until he’s finished his beer.

“So, you got it from here?”

“Yes! For Christ’s sake get out of here and see your wife.”

Mickey’s plenty happy to get out of here; not to see his wife, of course, but Kevin doesn’t need to know that.

He takes the L downtown again and follows the same route as last time to the Fairy Tale. The sun’s already set, and the wind tonight makes the chilly air next to unbearable. He’s got his scarf pulled up over his face, and his jacket zipped all the way, but there’s only so much his clothes can do. Every new gust sends shivers down his arms and legs despite the brisk pace he’s setting. 

Walking inside the club is a relief - from the dry, hot air blowing on to him as soon as he’s inside, not the setting itself - and for a moment he forgets any of his misgivings about the place and just enjoys the warmth bringing feeling back into his fingertips. 

Just like before, all the patrons here are men. Like some kind of perverse re-imagining of his father’s gun club, all the way down to the abundant booze and constant group of people standing by the front door smoking. Except Mickey’s pretty sure the guys at the gun club don’t stand around french kissing, or blast rave music at all hours of the night, but who knows. He hasn’t been to one of those meetings in a long time; maybe things have changed since he was there last. 

The thought makes him smile internally, keeps his mind busy while he searches the stages and alcoves for Ian. He’s nowhere in sight, but to Mickey’s left there’s a young man walking towards him wearing the same tiny shorts Ian does when he’s working and an oversized Cubs sweatshirt; probably to signal he’s on break. Mickey doesn’t know him, figures he’s just going to walk past to get where he’s going, and reacts poorly when the guy stops and touches his arm instead. 

“Woah, easy there honey.”

“Move along. I ain’t looking for whatever shit you got.”

Like Svetlana, Mickey’s bad temper only seems to amuse the guy. 

“Black hair, short, standing around awkwardly, looks like he has no idea what he’s doing here. You must be Curtis’ Mickey.”

_ Curtis _ ; goddammit. 

“He asked me to look for you when I went out. Tell you he’s getting ready for his shift, and’ll be out in a few.”

“Okay.”

The guy looks at him, still amused, but doesn’t seem to have anything else to say. Maybe he thinks there’s something funny about Mickey. Maybe he’s just high on whatever this place has Ian smoking. As he’s walking away, he calls out behind him:

“Loosen up, sweetheart. Have some fun.”

Fat chance. 

Mickey goes to the bar to get a drink while he waits.

After ten minutes and half his beer, He finally spots Ian walking onto the floor, already brushing up against men twice his age. 

For about forty minutes, Mickey just watches him. 

It’s easy enough to notice the casual, but firm, way he disengages from guys wearing clothes resembling something like Mickey’s, so he can proposition and chat up the ones in nice suits, the ones who look slightly more tipsy, and Mickey even catches him watching a man tip the bartender before deciding whether or not to approach him. 

It stirs up more resignation than pride, but if Gallagher’s going to strip, the least he can do is be good at it. 

Ian knows he’s here, has caught his eye more than once, but takes his time coming over to say ‘hi’. Mickey’s kept his cool so far, but his restraint is slipping. Maybe Ian can sense it too; maybe he saw the way Mickey stood up the last time he was giving a lap dance and hasn’t sat down since. 

Honestly, it feels like he’s sixteen again; like he’s back in the living room, watching Ian on the couch with Mandy and being plagued by thoughts of all the things they could do together if they were alone. Maybe it’s the makeup, the things the lighting in here does to his hair, the lack of clothes, or just the sheer number of times he’s dreamed of seeing Ian again only to have him right here, so close now. 

“Nice tattoo.” He says when Ian’s close enough to hear him. 

“Yeah, seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Mickey nods, sips his beer, watches Ian watching him.

“Want a drink?”

“Can’t while I’m working. They’d just charge you and serve me soda water. Want a dance?”

Mickey makes a face, shakes his head, and Ian frowns.  _ Stop hiding. _ Yeah, yeah. He knows, but this time it really has nothing to do with that. He leans in closer so he doesn’t have to talk so loud. 

“Not unless you want me to jizz all over those fucking shorts. Besides, I spent all my money on beer.”

“Rookie mistake. Later then?”

“Yeah, later.”

“Great,” Ian looks at him like he knows Mickey’s not going to like the next part, and nothing could make him happier. “I’ll be off in five hours.”

*-*-*

He makes it another hour before he starts feeling like he’s dying for a cigarette, but every new customer Ian approaches looks as skeevy as the last one, and there never seems like a good time to stop watching. Somewhere in the back of his mind he  _ knows _ Ian’s taken care of himself this long and can survive another ten minutes without him, but another part keeps asking ‘what if?’ What if they found him just in time? What if tonight’s the night something goes wrong? What if Ian needs him, and he isn’t around?

So he waits, gets a refill and now really is almost out of money, and gives off an aura that seems to discourage the other dancers and patrons from bothering him. 

A little more than half-way through Ian’s shift, he’s moved past annoyed and into a more constant state of thrumming irritation. 

If Ian’s bothered by the loss of tips that having Mickey around has no doubt caused, he doesn’t say so. He should too: say something. Because the more he lets Mickey interrupt, the less it seems like he wants to be here at all, and if Mickey thought for even a second that Ian didn’t want to do this - that he’s only here because he feels like he has to be here - he’d throw him over his shoulder right now, carry him straight to the L, and just fucking take him home already.

There’s no indication that’s what Ian wants, and no indication it’s not. Every time Mickey’s ever attempted to guess what’s on Gallagher’s mind, he’s been wrong. So he waits, keeps the worst of the assholes away, and the angriest, least helpful comments inside his head where they can’t make Ian frown. 

_ Three, six, nine, twelve _

Goddammit, that guy is right: he does only have two knuckles on his thumb. No one in the Yards has ever corrected him about that before. 

“We got invited to an after hours at the loft of one of my regulars.” Ian says while Mickey’s still trying to decide whether or not to go after that guy and show him what all  _ fourteen _ of his knuckles can do. “It’s fun. What’s wrong with fun?”

Well since Ian’s asking, he’s had all night to think of a few answers to that. Before he can get even half of them out, Ian does that thing where he waits for Mickey to be at his most distracted, least prepared, and then attempts to kiss him. If he thinks it’s a joke - they really haven’t kissed enough for Mickey to know, one way or the other - then it’s funny only to him. If it’s a test, then Mickey fails spectacularly. They’re in public, surrounded by people; Ian might as well have pulled a gun on him. 

Now he’s made Ian frown again. 

Hiding.  _ Hiding. _ They’re not hiding anymore now, except when they need to. And do they really need to? Now?

No one here is going to say shit to Terry.

No one here is looking.

No one here cares.

He hasn’t forgotten all the times they kissed - it’s hard to forget something you think about all the time - but he has forgotten what it’s like to be kissed. Too intimate to be taken lightly; too important to be squandered.

This time when their lips touch, he doesn’t flinch. It’s not a question of want. He  _ wants  _ Ian all the time - in their neighborhood, in his bed, in this club. Even if he hadn’t spent their time apart in his own personal sexual purgatory, the last two days of having Ian close have been a minefield of constant temptation. Does Ian think he’s some kind of robot? Doesn’t he realize the feeling of their tongues touching and the pressure of Ian’s hand on the back of his neck is the most intimate thing that’s happened to him since the last time they did this? Does he think Mickey can sit through lap dances, watch Ian work all night, make out with him, and then just...what? Let him go back to work?

About fifteen seconds into the kiss, Ian seems to realize his mistake when Mickey doesn’t let him pull away. He should be happy; he was right. There’s no reason they can’t kiss here. No reason he shouldn’t take Ian into the bathroom right now, kick out whoever else is in there, and bend over the sink. 

“I gotta go back to work.”

“Take a fucking break.”

“You’re gonna get me fired, Mick.”

“Fuck do I care?”

They have to say all of this against each other’s lips because now Mickey got a hold of the stupid faux tie Ian is wearing to complete his sequined booty-shorts ensemble, and he’s as likely to rip the thing right off as he is to let go. 

Instead of arguing, Ian goes back to kissing him. Tentatively this time, like he knows now that maybe he shouldn’t push it.

“Take a break.” Mickey says again, completely serious. 

“Okay, but you have to let go.”

He probably could too, loosen his death grip on the tie, if Ian would stop breathing right against his cheek. If he would stop brushing their lips together as though there’s a kiss gentle enough to calm him down right now. If Ian would just, for a few seconds, stop  _ being Ian _ then maybe Mickey could let go. 

In the end, it’s more of a team effort. Ian’s hand covers his own on the tie, prying it out of his grip one finger at a time, and Mickey, for his part, tries to remember every lesson he’s ever learned about delayed gratification and let Ian go so when he comes back they can go somewhere private together. Somewhere that really is just the two of them.

Ian doesn’t have to go far. Just to the bar where he leans over the counter while Mickey notices - for what must be the hundredth time tonight - that he’s wearing practically nothing and it doesn’t take much imagination at all to picture what’s underneath those shorts. He doesn’t chat long with the bartender before coming back. 

“Okay, I’ve got thirty minutes for lunch. Let’s go.”

Mickey doesn’t bother to ask where, just grabs his jacket off the back of the chair he left it on and follows.

They go to the back of the club, past the booths where men are getting the more private ‘dances’ that Ian either doesn’t offer or has chosen to abstain from tonight while Mickey’s here. In an alcove near a small stage and DJ table is a door marked ‘employees only’, and Ian leads them through it without stopping. The hallway beyond is lit with sconces that line the walls, but they’re all turned down as if the person who designed this place knew it would be too much of a shock to go right from the club floor into a well-lit area.

Several doorways line the hallway, but Ian walks past the closed ones with a purpose until they come to one that’s been propped open. On the other side of this doorway is a cramped room lit with actual fluorescents. There are a few other guys in here, but none of them do more than glance as he and Ian walk by. Basically every inch of floor space is taken up with racks of clothes and outfits, mirrors, and vanities covered with more hair product and makeup than Mickey’s ever seen - and he grew up with Mandy. Scattered among the beauty products are all manner of personal paraphernalia: photographs, small chains and lockets hanging off thumb-tacks, a few books, and even a rosary dangling from the edge of one of the mirrors. He doesn’t see anything that looks like it’s Ian’s, but maybe he wouldn’t know.

Not that it matters. How much of his own room, currently, would remind Ian of him?

They’ve almost gotten to the far end of the room, where a heavy fire door has been propped open a few inches with a wooden doorstop, when someone calls out to Ian using his stage name.

“I’m going to lunch real quick.” Ian says, gesturing to Mickey despite the fact he’s obviously not ‘lunch’.

“That’s fine, and don’t bite my head off, but can I use your mascara again? Mine’s all clumpy.”

Ian scoffs, but it sounds friendly and unbothered. 

“Sure, fine. But I’m starting to think you buy the cheap ones on purpose just so you can use mine.”

The guy winks at him like maybe that is the case, and what’s he going to do about it, then walks away again with a thanks and a wave. Mickey watches this silently and thinks about how Ian’s been on his own all this time and hasn’t done much worse than him, than Mandy. 

“What?” Ian asks when he catches him staring.

“Nothin’.”

“Okay. Let’s go out there.” He nods towards the fire door and follows Mickey through, making sure the stopper stays in place and it doesn’t close behind them. 

The dressing room was chilly after the warmth of the dance floor, but that’s nothing compared to the rush of cold air that hits them as soon as they’re outside. Even when he hands over his jacket so Ian can pull it on, being out here for long probably isn’t a good idea. Ian shivers a little and Mickey pulls him close, bringing his hands under the jacket so he can hold Ian while they kiss and maybe warm him up a little. 

The alley back here is empty except for them, dark except for the sliver of light coming through the cracked door, and quiet except for the faint noise of cars on the street and the soft squeak of a fire escape, somewhere above their heads, blown by the wind.

Now Ian’s kissing him with a purpose again. Not like he wants to get away, or has something else to do, but like right now Mickey is his sole focus. It’s so much easier to stay when Ian pushes him against the wall with his body; he might as well be laying on top of Mickey for how much they’re counting on the bricks to support their weight.

If Mickey was at his limit on the club floor, making out in front of a bunch of people, he’s well past it now. There’s no way Ian hasn’t noticed how hard he is, even through his jeans, and now his hands have free roam too. They start on Ian’s back, under the warmth of the jacket, across his shoulder blades, down his spine, and lower. Along the curve of Ian’s butt, above the shorts at first, but Mickey’s only a man. Soon he’s sliding his fingers under the fabric and touching Gallagher’s bare skin the way other men in the club could only dream of. 

Ian makes an appreciative noise when Mickey grabs a handful and squeezes, but the way he grinds forward again - no longer kissing Mickey’s lips, but his neck and adam’s apple and the spot just below his ear that has no right being so sensitive - only brings to light an old, but unchanged, problem. 

“Yeah, yeah. I know. I’m fucking easy.” He says. Irritated only at himself and the ridiculous way his voice wavers in the cold. 

He pulls his hands out of Ian’s shorts so he can get his dick out of his own pants before he can make a mess in them; he would probably have to stand in line in the damn bathroom here just to dry them off. 

_ Fuck _

“Let me do it.” Ian says as he watches Mickey’s numb fingertips slip over the zipper for a second time.

“I fucking got it.”

“You’re just getting angry. Let me do it.”

Mickey concedes, puts his hands on Ian’s back again where it’s so much warmer, and lets Ian undo his pants. Once he’s slid them, and Mickey’s boxers, down past his hips - and his own shorts too - they go back to kissing; only this time it’s nothing but bare skin when Ian presses their hips back together. 

“God, I missed you so much.” Ian says so close to his face, Mickey can literally feel the warmth of his words. He can’t do anything but agree; he’ll never argue with Gallagher again, not about anything. However Ian says it is, it is; and if he ever gets the impulse to disagree with him, Mickey will just remember this. How it feels to have Ian touching him again, to have the only warm places on his body be where their skin is pressing together, the sensation of Ian’s hands between them, stroking Mickey’s dick without any sense of urgency. It’s like he knows exactly how senseless Mickey gets when he’s feeling this good. 

“You’re so hard,” Ian says - not smugly, conversationally - but there’s no obvious answer to that. He  _ is _ and if Ian thinks it’s pathetic, there’s nothing he can do about it now. “I want…”

Mickey wants to hear the end of that sentence, but Ian either doesn’t know how to finish or can’t figure out how to put it into words. Relatable, if incredibly frustrating from the other side.

When he doesn’t finish the thought, doesn’t move his hands any faster or attempt to do anything with his own dick, Mickey says, ‘don’t stop’ gently. Just trying to get his attention back. 

Ian sighs, and it comes out of his mouth as a plume of white vapor. Then he leans in again for another deep kiss, and his hand starts moving again at a more serious pace until it’s the only thing Mickey can think about anymore. 

They don’t stop kissing again even when it’s basically just Ian’s tongue given free range because Mickey’s using his mouth primarily to breath and moan. Ian’s no longer jacking just him off; now it’s both their dicks in his hand, even though Mickey’s certainly going to finish first. He’s not even trying to hide it. Not trying to keep his voice down because the wind blowing through the alley is carrying away most of the sounds he’s making anyway. The hand not cupping Ian’s ass is holding his own shirt up, over his stomach, so when he does cum he’ll still be able to wear this shirt for the rest of the night.

Not very romantic; but maybe romance has more to do with being there for the other person than looking good when you bang. If he could do both, like Ian, he would. 

Instead, he has to bury his face in Ian’s neck to hide whatever ridiculous expression he makes when he comes. Ian lets go of his dick, but keeps him pinned against the wall as he strokes his own. 

“Mickey, I’m gonna fuck you so hard the next chance I get.” He’s not looking for a reply. Just thinking out loud, talking himself over the edge. “Fuck. It gets me so hot, the way you want it.”

Mickey doesn’t want to interrupt; doesn’t want to say anything to throw him off, and is too unsure what Ian would make of his own thoughts on the subject to vocalize them. 

He doesn’t seem to need Mickey’s help anyways, and continues imagining some of the things they could do together - nothing outside the bounds of reality - out loud. It’s not until Ian mentions that he wants to fuck Mickey better than any other guy has ever fucked him, that he feels compelled to inturrupt and say that no other guy ever has. 

“Bullshit.” Ian says through his chattering teeth.

“Nah, it’s true.”

“Fuck...fuck.”

Ian puts his head on Mickey’s shoulder, and neither of them say anything else, but he doesn’t last much longer. Everything he feels is transferring to Mickey secondhand: the tightening of his body in all the places they’re touching, the sounds that come out of Ian’s mouth. No words, but Mickey can understand him just fine. After all, he was making his own similar ones just a few minutes ago. 

When he’s done, Ian pulls them into a tight hug where they share both the mess and their warmth with each other for a few, perfect seconds. Mickey lets his hands go under the jacket again, around Ian’s back, to hold him too. They might have gone too far again, just like the kiss in the club, because he’s starting to feel like he won’t ever be able to let go. What force in the world could be strong enough to pry him away from Ian after everything?

The answer is in the question. The only force strong enough to pry him away from Ian  _ is _ Ian. Tonight, it’s the way he shivers, the sound of his teeth chattering. He’s not even wearing pants for Christ's sake, they never should have been out here this long and, now that he’s thinking about it, his own ass feels practically frozen to the brick wall at his back. 

If only it didn’t feel so nice: holding him and being held. If only Ian would make the first move, but he seems perfectly willing to freeze to death like this if Mickey let’s them. 

“Come on. Back inside.” Mickey says when he’s first attempts to pull away are met with resistance.

“No. One more minute.” Ian replies, still trembling.

“Your tiny ass is going to freeze off. Then who’s gonna pay you to dance, huh?”

An unpleasant picture is forming in his mind, of how pink and raw from the wind Ian’s legs are going to be by the time they get inside. All because Mickey couldn’t wait until the end of his shift for a handjob. 

“Alright, enough. Let’s go.”

He gets enough space between them to pull his pants up. While he struggles with his zipper again, Ian pulls his own shorts up and starts jumping in little hops, rubbing his arms and trying to warm up. 

Mickey covers the mess on his own stomach with his shirt - he’s going to have to wash up in the bathroom after all - but when he tells Ian to do the same by zipping up the jacket, he gets an annoyed look in return.

“Don’t start that again.”

_ Seriously? _ In what universe is ‘hide the cum-stains on your stomach before someone sees’ an unreasonable request?

Annoyed or not, Ian does zip up the jacket before he goes back through the door. Mickey, figuring he can’t get far - there can’t be more than ten minutes left on his lunch - stays outside for another few minutes to smoke. 

When he gets back inside, Ian’s warmed up, and cleaned up, and is leaning against one of the vanities talking to a guy who’s reclining in a chair near him. The guy’s resting his feet on the counter, one of them just inches away from Ian’s hand. 

When Ian sees him come in, he points to another door on the far wall and says, “Bathroom’s there. Don’t miss anything or someone might see it.” Sounding a little peevish, but not pissed. So, that’s fine. 

He has to get a few paper towels wet under the faucet before he can completely clean off his stomach, but there’s something oddly comforting - throwing the paper towel into the trashcan - in knowing he can’t possibly be the only person to ever come in here for this exact same reason. Hell, maybe not even the only person today.

“So, you want to go then?” Ian asks him - still in the same place, lighted mirror at his back - when Mickey walks back out of the bathroom. 

“What?”

The guy who was talking to Ian is facing the other way now, looking at his phone. 

“To the party? It’ll be good for...us.”

For both of them? Or for Mickey? The pause at the end makes it seem like Ian was thinking the latter.

“Sure.”

“Really?”

Mickey throws up his hands in a tentative affirmative, and Ian gives him an equally tentative smile.

“Great.”

“Great.”

_ Just fucking great. _

*-*-*

He waits out the rest of Ian’s shift knowing that afterwards they’re going to have to go to a party full of people exactly like the ones who are laughing and drinking and dancing around him now, and whoever designed life must have been some kind of sadist because now that he’s not actually looking forward to Ian getting off work, the time seems to go by twice as fast.

Like Cinderella with an extended curfew, just a few minutes before one, Ian gracefully extracts himself from the stage and disappears through the same door they went through earlier. Mickey watches the door, feeling anxious. Maybe Ian will have changed his mind about the party. He must be tired after dancing all night, it’s kind of exhausting just watching him. There might still be a chance to convince him - before they get to the party - to just go home instead. Except, if Mickey even opens his mouth to complain about the party, he’s going to hear all the same shit from Ian:  _ Why don’t you ever want to have fun? I don’t want to go home. Are you embarrassed to be seen with me? _

He’s not. There just doesn’t seem to be a good way to draw a line between ‘I don’t want to go to a faggy fucking party’, and ‘I don’t want to go to a faggy fucking party  _ with you _ ’. 

Not that it matters; if Ian’s going to the party, he’s going to the party too.

Ian reappears in the clothes he left the house in this morning, says goodnight to the bartender, and Mickey follows him onto the street where the temperature has once again dropped. At least this time they’re both wearing pants and have their own jackets.

“It’s pretty close,” Ian says, blowing into his hands to keep them warm. “We can walk.”

Mickey nods, still too annoyed with the idea to say anything about it, one way or the other.

While they walk, Ian continues to rub his hands together and bounce around every so often as though it will fend off the cold. It’s not so much the air as the wind, blowing mercilessly through the buildings like it’s got a personal vendetta against their exposed ears and noses. It makes a hooting sound as it blows through crevices, causes signs above shops to sway and creak, and flaps around the flags people have hanging off their balconies. So it’s not silent as they walk, but they are.

After a few blocks, Ian reaches out to touch his sleeve, and Mickey stops walking. Maybe Ian’s reconsidered and wants to go home after all, but instead of saying anything, he just looks at Mickey like he’s waiting for something. 

“What?”

But Ian doesn’t answer.

Mind reading. Fuck flying, invisibility, super strength; Mickey wants to be a mind reader.

Ian remains stubbornly silent, but after a few moments of not talking, he moves closer and takes Mickey’s arm in his. Like it will help them stay warm; like they’re going to walk down the street like this. 

He makes like he’s going to start walking again, but now it’s Mickey’s turn to be stubborn, to stand still. 

“Really?” Ian asks, exasperated.

“I said I’d go to the party. That’s not enough?”

Ian looks around them. At the cars on the road, the few other people out this late, and up at the balconies above where there’s light and movement in some of the windows. 

“Who’s going to care?” He asks and it sounds more like he’s talking to himself than Mickey. 

“Are you fucking dumb? No, seriously. You think no one gives a shit?”

“Not  _ here _ . We’re not alone here. It’s…”

At first when he says they’re not alone, Mickey thinks that proves his point exactly, but then he realizes what Ian actually means. That they’re not the only  _ gay _ people here, in Boystown. That there’s a good chance the other people walking down the street, driving in the cars, living their lives behind those balconies and windows, are gay too. On these streets, he and Ian aren’t the odd men out.  _ They’re  _ in the majority here. Protected by numbers in a way they’ll never be in the Yards. 

A community. A community that accepts the two of them by default because - whether or not they ever wanted to be - they are a part of it. 

“It’s okay.” Ian finishes his thought, but he no longer needs to. In the few seconds he hesitated, Mickey came to the same conclusion on his own. 

He lets Ian keep hold of his arm, and they start walking again. 

*-*-*

At first, the party is pretty much exactly what he expected. There’s so many cardigans and pressed slacks, it looks more like a men’s department store than a casual hangout, and Mickey has about as much in common with these guys as they would with the rest of the Milkovich’s. 

He has a beer - at least, it looks and more or less tastes like a beer, but he’s forgotten what it’s called now and won’t be able to ask for another - and he stands by the one of the floor-to-ceiling windows towards the corner of the room where it’s both less crowded, and slightly cooler than the rest of the space. 

Ian is chatting to a small crowd that’s gathered around him in the kitchen, looking comfortable with the attention. 

He was right: the view from the windows is incredible. Like something out of a movie, except movies never make it clear how hypnotic it is to watch the tiny car lights drive by on the streets below. 

This is fine. Ian is happy. Mickey doesn’t have a single place he could take them that would be safer than this. He hasn’t seen any hard drugs. Nothing but wine and beer; nothing that gives any answers about Ian’s occasional erratic behavior. If there’s coke here, these guys are classy enough to do it in the bathroom. 

“Do you work security?”

“Huh?”

“Just the way you're checking out the place.” 

The speaker is one of the other party guests. Older than him, with streaks of grey in his hair and a thick, green cable-knit sweater. In his hand is a stemless glass full of burgundy wine. Instead of looking at Mickey when he talks, he leans against the window and looks outside; maybe watching the cars as well. 

“Just lookin’ I guess.”

“Mmm. You’re not a cop, are you?” 

Mickey looks at the guy and sees he’s looking back now, a little suspiciously, over the rim of his glass as he takes a sip. 

“Fuck no. Hit one once.”

He kind of wishes he had just asked for wine himself now. This beer is tasting worse and worse the warmer it gets. 

“How’d that work out for you?”

“Great. Got a one way ticket back to my old cell block. In Juvie.” He adds quickly at the end because that first sentence makes him sound like some psycho criminal, and if he gets kicked out of this party, Ian might not want to leave with him. 

“Really?” The guy says, now looking at Mickey more than out the window, “I went to Juvie too, for a few months. Long time ago, and for something stupid.”

Mickey nods but doesn’t know what to say to that, and they both fall silent. After a few moments, the guy starts again; in a quieter voice, remembering out loud. 

“It’s hard, going back after something like that. It kind of feels like everyone else has moved on, and you’re just stuck trying to catch up. Trying to get people to… to notice you again.”

It’s a strange feeling, having his own secret thoughts be spoken to him out loud by some stranger, and Mickey feels a small rush of camaraderie towards the guy. He doesn’t even know his name. 

“I’m sorry. Wine makes me blab.” The guy says, taking Mickey’s silence for disinterest. 

“No, it’s fine. I just- yeah. Dropped out. Of high school.” 

Not that he would have graduated anyways. Not that this guy cares.

“Shit, that’s rough. But, hey, you’re young, and life has a way of changing over time. Doing unexpected things to you so you never know where you’re going to end up. It did for me.” He says, waving around the room like this isn’t where he expected to be tonight either. 

They’ve only been talking for a few minutes, but Mickey’s lost track of Ian during that time and is taken by surprise when he suddenly appears next to them, holding a stemless wine glass of his own. 

Mickey watches as Ian and the guy introduce themselves. Maybe he should have offered his hand and name too, but no one seems to expect him too and he’d rather not anyways. 

“You guys know each other?”

“Yeah,” Ian answers for the both of them, “We grew up on the same block.”

*-*-*

An hour, maybe more, a few beers, and so much talking Mickey’s long since run out of things to say, later, and the group’s discussion has gone from topic to topic until now - like several other unrelated conversations Mickey’s had in the past few days - has turned to pubic hair. He and Ian are sitting on a loveseat in a small circle of people whose names he’s either forgotten or never learned, and all the ambient sounds of a dinner party - clinking glasses, separate conversations, occasional laughter, low music coming from the stereo - act as a sort of barrier to keep any one topic from becoming too awkward. 

The alcohol also helps. 

“It’s just better, I think.” Says the guy Mickey recognizes as the host. “Just better to have it all gone. Cleaner, prettier, nicer. Boom. Bam. Gone.” He gestures to his own, Mickey can only assume, perfectly shaved crotch.

“It’s not natural.” Someone else counters. “Give me a dick with some character, please!”

Other members of the group let out comfortable chuckles. 

“What about you Curtis,” The host says looking at Ian. “Clean or character?”

For the first time Mickey’s ever witnessed, Ian blushes at the forwardness of a question. He brings his glass up to his face to cover his embarrassed smile as he considers how to answer.

“I don’t know. Clean, I guess.”

Without warning and possibly unconsciously, he glances at Mickey. Immediately, several other eyes follow his. Green sweater gasps, pretending to be scandalized. He’s at least another two glasses deep from when they were talking at the window before. 

“Is that true Mickey? You keep the garden tamed?”

Ian, looking repentant for getting them into this, opens his mouth to answer for him, but Mickey cuts him off. 

“Yeah, I don’t like pubes. Is that a fucking crime? You got six people using a shower now all the sudden I gotta clean out the drain every other week. Fuckin’ disgusting.” 

Rather than surprise, faked or otherwise, at his outburst, the group of well-dressed men with college degrees and condos in high rises burst out laughing when he’s done.

“That’s exactly it!” The host says, vindicated. “More trouble than it’s worth. Better to just get rid of all of it.”

Green sweater shakes his head, unconvinced. 

“If my drain is clogged, then I just call my hot plumber to fix it. All I’m saying is, why mess with a good thing?”

The group is pretty evenly split on the issue, but while they continue to discuss it the host leans towards the loveseat and says to them conspiratorially:

“Honestly, when I was about your age, I got it all lasered off. Best decision I ever made.”

“What,  _ forever _ ?” Ian asks, and Mickey must have misheard - or maybe he’s drunker than he thought - because it sounds like this guy just said he used a fucking laser to shave off his pubes. 

“Mhmm. Never looked back.”

“A laser?” Mickey interrupts. He’s probably going to embarrass Ian if this is a stupid question, but he’s kind of getting stuck on that point. “Like… a fucking James Bond villain?”

The host laughs.

“Exactly like a James Bond villain.”

“It’s just a procedure, Mick. Doctors do it to get rid of your hair permanently.” 

“You can do that?” He asks at the same time the host says ‘doctors’ skeptically, using his hands to make air quotes. Ian smiles.

“If you have enough money,” He says.

Money. Right. They say if you have enough money, you can do anything. Including, apparently, paying some sketchy doctor to point a laser at your dick and burn all the hairs off. Permanently. 

What a life.

*-*-*

_ Rock. Paper. Scissors. Shoot. _

He and Ian both throw rock again.

It’s just so hard to concentrate and make his fist into any other shape; he’s so tired, and comfortable. The loveseat they were sitting on has been pulled out into a bed for the two of them. They’re supposed to be playing to see who gets the softer pillow, but the one under his head doesn’t feel so bad either.

Turned on their sides so they’re facing one another, they ready their fists for a tie-breaker. This time he’s going to throw paper for sure and win; he’s got it all planned out. 

_ Rock. Paper. Scissors. Shoot. _

Mickey does remember to flatten his palm this time instead of keeping it in a fist, but Ian’s two steps ahead of him like always and throws scissors. 

He has to gloat quietly because most of the other guests are already asleep. 

To the victor, go the spoils, but Ian can keep the soft pillow. All Mickey wants is to curl up around him. So that when he sleeps, he knows Ian won’t leave, and that when he wakes up, they’ll still be together. 

*-*-*

Back in the Yards, Svetlana falls asleep on their bed with Yevgeny. She couldn’t wait for Mickey any longer at the hospital, and Mandy had to drive her home.

*-*-*


	4. Jobs & Insecurities

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Svetlana blackmailing him, Mickey has to combine his talents with Ian's to make some money

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! I got distracted this last month, but I haven't forgotten about this story or stopped writing it! Hope you enjoy :)

Season 4; Chapter 4: Jobs & Insecurities

It’s not so much he’s living at the Gallagher's now, as it is he’s just following Ian around. He hasn’t been home in days. Yesterday, he called the Alibi, but Kevin said everything was running smoothly and that Mickey should take at least another day to be with his family. It’s a point they can both agree on. It’s not his fault if Kevin doesn’t realize Ian is the only family Mickey needs; not like the bartender ever bothered to ask him. 

So he stays at the Gallagher's even though it pisses Lip off, even though he’s flat broke and has no choice but to eat their food, even though they go to bed late and he has to get up early so no one notices he’s sleeping in Ian’s bed. It’s not sustainable - he can’t keep mooching crumpled five’s and one’s off of Ian for his cigarettes forever - but for now there’s no other good options. The only other option, in fact, is to confront Svetlana. She’s at his house, his job, and he can’t go anywhere or do anything without taking the chance he’ll run into her. 

Mandy’s been texting him, too. Basically the same texts over and over:

[come home]

[call your wife]

The more he tries to think about the problem. The less he wants to do anything about it. It’s always tomorrow. Tomorrow, I’ll go to work; tomorrow, I’ll go home. 

He’s out of clean clothes, but there’s no lack of laundry hanging off of every available surface upstairs. Ian alone has enough hand-me-down shirts to clothe the city; they’re crammed into his dresser, one on top of the other, all the way back to ancient Def Leppard concert tees. Gallagher’s never seem to part with clothes, just pass them down to the next person as soon as they’ve grown out of one. 

Mickey should probably be trying harder to stay under the radar here and not piss Lip off so much, but it’s not like the guy makes it easy to be nice to him. Ian says he’s being biased, that Mickey’s only ever heard Mandy’s side of the story, and Lip’s a good guy, once you get to know him. Maybe that’s the case, but Ian wasn’t there last year. When Mickey had been existing in a state of shock after his own wedding, and Lip had come by to drive the final nail into his coffin; to remind him that Ian had left, and it had been all his fault. 

That’s not all. There’s also everything that happened between Lip and Mandy, and the fact Lip knows about Mickey. Ian won’t admit it, but Mickey can put all the pieces together close enough in hindsight to guess Lip knew all along. Not just about Ian, but him too. Ian probably blabbed to him the second he and Mickey started hooking up, and - if that’s true - it puts every conversation he’s ever had with the eldest Gallagher brother into a different light. 

That, coupled with the way he jerks Mandy around and treats - not just Mickey, but everyone in this house - as his own personal burden, it’s enough to make Mickey less than sympathetic towards the guy. 

He should go home, lay down some ground rules for Svetlana, go to work, get some money. He should be doing any one of those things - and will - but, for now, crashing with Ian just sounds so much easier. Every time he tries to seriously consider going home, his mind slides right over the thought like it’s made of oil and lands on something else he could be doing instead; like following Ian to work, or sleeping through the day with the hope he’ll be able to keep up with him through the night because Ian no longer appears to need sleep at all and only seems to do it occasionally to appease Mickey.

In the end, it’s Mandy who makes good on her promise and tells Svetlana where he is. Even though he was definitely going to go home at some point today, or, at the very least, text Mandy and  _ tell  _ her he was going to go home at some point today.

They’re downstairs together, he and Ian, enjoying the perfect mid-morning peace that only exists in this house on weekdays in the hours between seven and three. Ian is cutting up his regulation army pants into something more suitable for his new line of work, and it’s the most comforting thing Mickey’s seen in recent memory because the army was always  _ away _ whereas stripping - for all its potential downsides - is at least something that can be done a fifteen minute train ride from home. 

They get about twenty seconds of alone-time before a knock comes at the door. 

Ian answers, but when Svetlana comes in she’s only got eyes for Mickey. She’s also got the baby -  _ her  _ baby - and somehow the damn thing looks more pathetic and vulnerable outside of her than in. 

Whatever’s coming next is going to be a conversation between them, sure, but when she sends Ian away with a look, Mickey feels some of his courage leave right along with him. If she can control  _ Ian _ like that, how the fuck is he supposed to get her to listen to him?

“When you coming home?” She asks. 

“I’m not coming home.” Not the way she wants him to anyways. He’s staying with Ian until the devil himself shows up on that doorstep and drags him away, kicking and screaming. Svetlana might think she’s strong enough to drag him somewhere, but she’s not. All her presence - especially now, with that thing in her arms - ever does is repulse him. All he ever wants when she’s near is to get away.

That’s not very courageous. He’s not a coward it’s just…it’s just her, okay? Her and Terry and some animalistic part of his brain that makes him want to run away; that makes any fight with either of them feel impossible to win.

And it’s never enough. Pretending for his father, for her, for everyone else. It’s been like descending a ladder straight into hell, one rung at a time, and at every step - each time he hits a new low - he reaches down only to find there’s plenty more to go. Now he’s so far down it might not be possible to climb back up. 

“Seven pounds, six ounces.” she says.

_ That’s not my kid _

Now Svetlana’s complaining because instead of taking care of the child  _ she  _ wanted, she’s working at the rub ‘n tug just to earn enough to pay some other whore to watch it. If she needs him to tell her that’s not a viable long-term strategy, she really is up shit creek. The only problem is, Mickey’s not a paddle. 

“You could watch him.” 

She says it like she means it; like Mickey’s really going to sit around all day, shaking that thing to sleep, so she can suck guys off at the Alibi and spend her paycheck on makeup and press-on nails. 

Fuck her. 

She didn’t have that kid because she wanted it. She had it just to spit in his face. Terry and Svetlana Milkovich’s final act. One last, giant fuck you to Mickey, and boy is it a doozy. 

Seeing the baby like that - calm, a little squirmy - in her arms, there’s a tiny, traitorous part of Mickey that does want to hold it. Just for a second, but then he looks back at it’s mother and the feeling immediately disappears. 

“I got better shit to do.”

“Yeah? Like what, do ass-fuck with orange boy?”

Why does it always have to be about Ian? Why did Terry go for him first?  _ Mickey _ is the problem, and Svetlana has never failed to come up with new insults, threats, and backhanded comments about him, but now that he’s back with Gallagher, he’s got a giant, Ian-sized hole in his defenses, and Svetlana at least can see right through it. 

How is he supposed to keep their secret, keep Ian happy, and protect them from everyone he’s ever pissed off. 

“What’s your father going to say, when he gets out of jail,” Mickey doesn’t need her help to picture it:  _ Terry pissed off. Beating the shit out of Ian in Mickey’s living room.  _ “And I tell him you spend all day with orange boy rubbing your dicks together?”  _ Terry, with his gun, half a second away from putting a bullet in Ian’s brain.  _ An act of destruction so heinous, it’s unfathomable, and Mickey would have been complicit. Still might be. 

“He’s going to cut yours off and shove it up boyfriend’s anus, right where you like it. Five hundred dollars tomorrow, or I call him."

“Do you even want to know your son’s name?”

“Fuck you. That’s his name.” He says, and, without another word, she leaves.

Fuck you, Mickey. Fuck you for ever thinking you had a choice. Fuck you for being born Terry’s son. Fuck you for wanting to be happy. Just-

_ Fuck _

_ You _

_ Mickey! _

“Hey! Is everything alright?”

It’s Ian, coming down the stairs in his freshly cut off army pants, and acting like Mickey kicking the dining room chairs hard enough to leave dents is the most distressing thing going on. 

“Fine. I’m going to the bar to get some cash.”

“Hey wait! Before you go, how do I look?”

Like a dolled-up version of the Ian Mickey used to know. Forced to sell a fake, sexuallized idea of himself to men who would be fucking blessed to get even a minute alone with the real Ian. 

“Great. You working all night?”

“Yeah, pretty much. I’m free now though, if you want to hang out.”

“Can’t. I gotta go.” He goes to open the back door, then pauses. “Hey, you carry anything when you go to work? A knife? Something.”

“No. Where would I put it?” Ian lifts up his shirt like he’s proving to Mickey there’s no hidden pockets beneath. 

“I don’t give a shit. Put it in your fucking underwear if you gotta.”

“Mickey, I’m not going to carry a knife around in my underwear. I’m already circumcised.” He smiles at his own joke, but Mickey’s face doesn’t change and after a few seconds, Ian starts to mirror his look of consternation. “What’s going on? Did she say something to you?”

“Nothin’. Look I seriously gotta go. Just... in your jacket or something, when you’re walking to work.”

He goes to open the door again, but Ian grabs his arm to stop him. 

“What, no goodbye kiss?”

Busy or not, he’s got time for that.

*-*-*

He’ll collect the money from the Alibi and give it to Svetlana. She has the kid, she wants the money, and she’s got him over a barrel. So, fine. He and Ian need to decide what  _ they’re  _ going to do before he can decide what he’s going to do. That would be a lot easier if he could ever catch Ian in the right mood to talk about anything serious, but attempting to pin Gallagher down for any amount of time these days is an exercise in futility. Not that Mickey’s been trying very hard. 

It’s just that he needs a little more time. A little more time to just  _ be  _ with Ian before everything implodes around them again. He’s earned that right by now, hasn’t he?

Not according to Svetlana and, by proxy, Terry. Not according to Kevin who treats Mickey’s business venture as his own personal piggy bank for - you guessed it - babies. 

Everyone and their goddamn babies suddenly acting like they deserve the money Mickey’s been busting his ass to make. He can’t remember anyone ever cutting the Milkovich’s a break after Mandy and him were born, but now everyone around him is popping out kids and making it his fucking problem. 

All of this is his fucking problem.

None of this should be his problem. 

At the Alibi, Kevin gives him no more than a few hundred bucks. It’s not enough to pay Svetlana. Not enough to buy food, cigarettes, beer, anything. 

Outside the Alibi, he smokes leaning against the building and fingers the envelope of money in his pocket. 

He should be able to do this. Terry did: took care of mom, the kids, and hell probably even a few whores on the side too. Terry taught him how to do everything, did his best to get Mickey set up for the shit-show that is adult responsibilities. But still, here he is. Not just struggling but failing. Doesn’t Svetlana understand? She has a  _ job _ . She’s in a better position than he is; has more money to her name. Mandy, Kevin, Ian. All of them have jobs. They have their looks, clean records, businesses that were just fucking given to them, and he’s got nothing. Nothing but a set of semi-skills tailor-made to send him straight back into prison next to his father. 

He doesn’t want to go to prison. Doesn’t want to sit in some building while everyone else goes about their lives without him. While they forget about him. 

If he doesn’t come up with the money, Svetlana will make good on her promise and rat him out to Terry. If he doesn’t keep his troubles to himself, Ian could realize nothing’s actually changed and leave again. If he doesn’t figure this out soon, he’s going to end up doing something stupid; robbing some place he shouldn’t - maybe somewhere the clerk keeps a pistol hidden under the counter - and he knows exactly how that would turn out. 

Svetlana’s at work, so now would be the perfect time to go back to his place and get some stuff. But if she’s at the Alibi, then the baby’s at home with its ‘babysitter’. It’s nothing to him: if the kid’s crying, if it’s hungry. None of that has anything to do with him, but it’s still better not to know. Also Mandy might be there, and if he starts in on her about telling Svetlana where he was, who knows how far the argument will go. Better just to find Ian. 

What good is home anyways, if it’s not somewhere he can meet up with Gallagher?

So he passes by his own house and goes to Ian’s instead. Inside, the kids are sitting around the tv eating overcooked chicken nuggets and someone’s left the stove on. When he shuts it off and asks where Ian is, Carl says he hasn’t seen him or Fiona, but Lip’s upstairs studying. 

Mickey goes into the living room and eats a few of the chicken nuggets off the baking sheet.

“Think Ian’s at work?”

“Are you guys in love?” Carl counters.

“Will you look at my history homework? I have to have it in tomorrow and Lip’s busy.” Debbie says even more alarmingly. 

Liam is looking at him now too instead of the tv screen.

“No.” He says to Debbie first, then turns to Carl, “And fuck no. If you see him, tell him I was looking.”

He’s got to be at work. Or some random old guy’s place. Jesus, he might still be fucking that doctor. That’s not fair and Mickey knows it - he’s been living practically on top of Ian for the past few days and hasn’t seen anything to suggest he’s sleeping around - but it’s hard to keep his mind from making the leap. 

Mickey tries calling his cell, but Ian doesn’t answer. It’s an uncomfortable feeling, reminiscent of all those days that went by without hearing from him, and he doesn’t try a second time. 

To make matters worse - or slightly more irritating at least - the temperature has plummeted again and brought with it a fresh sheet of snow covering the ground. He’s barely gone a block into Boystown before his toes start aching from the chill. 

He needs another two-hundred and fifty dollars to pay off Svetlana, and the step before robbing a liquor store is asking Ian for the money. Not that it feels like the better option as he’s standing in front of the club and waiting for Gallagher to show up. 

Ian finally does, but doesn’t give any indication of where he was that wasn’t home or work. 

“You got any money?” Mickey asks even though he knows most of Ian’s money goes to his family, and he’s breaking some unspoken rule here just by asking, but he doesn’t really have a choice. 

“Couple bucks.” Ian says.

It was a long shot anyways. He can pull something off tonight. The jitters he feels at the thought are just that: jitters. 

“You boys want to go for a ride around the block?” Comes a voice from a car on the street; reminiscent of a middle-class Lakeview resident driving through the Yards with the doors locked, looking for a place to score cheap weed.

“Do we look like a couple of fags for sale to you?” It’s hypothetical, but as soon as Mickey says it - and the guy gives him a look - the basic truth of the statement becomes more obvious to him. 

Unlike Ian and Svetlana, Mickey has neither the looks nor the patience to make money off of old guys who have plenty to spare. He also can’t stand the thought of some stranger touching him, pulling at his clothes, talking to him like they know him, own him. Ian claims it’s not easy for him either, but that’s never stopped him before. 

This fucking guy in the car is still coming on to them, and Mickey has to pick an empty bottle off the ground and chuck it at his overpriced car to get him to fuck off. 

“That shit happen to you a lot?”

“Everynight.” Ian says like it’s a burden to be able to make money off yourself. To not have to steal and bum money off your smarter, more attractive boyfriend like you’re just begging him to realize -  _ again _ \- that he can do better. Ian doesn’t have to worry about any of that because Ian has a face that convinces people to just pay for him, to let him into their apartments and hotel rooms, and if Mickey could do that then he would take every cent he could get his hands on, and the kitchen sink too. But Mickey doesn’t know the first thing about prostituting himself, and Ian…

Oh, wait.

“Tell your boss you’re going home sick tonight.”

“Sick?”

“Yeah, whatever. Tell him you got AIDS.”

Mickey’s got the beginnings of a plan in mind, and if it works he and Ian are going to make a lot more than a few hundred bucks tonight. Each. 

Ian comes out of the club and back to the curb a few minutes later looking annoyed, and waves Mickey off when he offers him a cigarette. 

“This better be good. My boss wasn’t happy.”

“About the AIDS?”

“I didn’t tell him I have AIDS, asshole. That’s not funny.” 

But there’s a tiny smile at the corner of his lips when he says it, like maybe Ian does think it’s funny even if the other guys at the club wouldn’t. 

“What are we doing anyways?”

“Getting money for Svetlana- and you. We get one of those rich dudes to pick us up. Then we jump the fucker, take all his shit.”

“Mick.”

“It’ll work-”

“I’m not mugging some guy in his car in the middle of the street.”

They’re still near the entrance to the club, and Ian’s rubbing his face like he’s exasperated and might just decide to go to work after all. 

“Okay, how about this,” Ian counters instead of leaving, “Same plan, but at a hotel. The guy brings us back to his room, and we mug him there.”

“How’s that better than on the street? Someone’ll hear us if we beat the shit out of a guy in a hotel room.”

“We don’t have to beat the shit out of him. These guys, they get jumpy if you pull out your cell phone. They’re more worried about someone figuring out what they’re doing than actually getting mugged.”

“So what?” Mickey asks, “We get him to the hotel room, threaten to tell his family, and he just… gives us all his money?”

“Exactly.”

“Great. Where’s the nearest fleabag we can get some of these guys?”

“You can’t just go to any hotel,” Ian tugs at Mickey’s jacket while he talks, looking critically at the shirt below. “You got any better clothes?”

“Not on me.”

The next thing Ian inspects is his hair; forcing Mickey to look down and away, slightly embarrassed. He doesn’t need Ian to tell him he’d make a terrible prostitute. 

“You’d make more money than me at the club if you’d just-”

But Mickey smacks his hands away before he can finish, and backs out of his reach. 

“We’re not talking about me.”

“I’m not doing this alone.”

“Course you’re not. Relax.”

But neither of them are saying what they’re thinking. That having Mickey around while they’re trying to hook a john would be about as successful as sending a dog out to coax the cat back inside. Neither his bite nor his bark is going to be of any use here. 

“Alright, how about this,” Mickey says after a few moments of silent consideration. “ _ We _ get a hotel room. I wait there. You bring the guy up. No stops, don’t go anywhere else. Just bring the guy up and I’ll be there.” 

“Okay,” Ian says, and he sounds happier with this plan than the original one, “But we can’t just go to some shit-hole motel. You have to go to the places where the businessmen would go. Wealthy ones, from out of town. Somewhere with a bar.”

Mickey doesn’t argue; Ian sounds like he knows what he’s talking about. 

*-*-*

They end up at a nice place far enough from the Fairy Tale there’s no more empty buildings around, fewer bums on the sidewalks, less cops just cruising and out looking for trouble. There’s some conference for lawyers going on at this hotel, and as soon as Ian sees the sign, he says this is the right place.

The lobby is huge and mostly empty except for a well-dressed concierge behind the check-in desk, and a few people in suits milling around in groups of two’s and three’s. Some are chatting with each other, others are sitting on the decorative couches with their laptops out. All of the crown moulding, columns, and pictures frames are painted the same gaudy shade of gold. There’s two ATMs built into the wall on the far end of the space.

Ian is distracted; looking through two, large, open double-doors to where the bar is, and Mickey grabs him by the arm of his coat to walk them both over to the welcome desk. 

“You got any rooms?” Mickey asks the guy behind the counter. 

“Are you here for the conference?” He responds politely. 

“Do we look like we’re-”

“No.” Ian cuts him off before he can finish. “We just need a room for the night.”

“Do you have a reservation?”

“No.”

The polite look starts to fade. 

“We’re fairly booked up at the moment.”

“Look,” Mickey says, losing his patience. “We need a room for a few hours, and we don’t care which one.”

Before the concierge can respond, Mickey takes all the money from the envelope Kevin gave him and slides it across the counter for all three of them to look at. 

The concierge blinks first, and the money disappears under his palm. 

“Two-fifteen is open. The room’s scheduled for an eight a.m. cleaning. I’d be out before then.”

He slides a plastic card through a reader, then hands it over. Mickey takes the card and walks away from the last of his cash. 

They’ll make it back. They have to. 

The lobby’s technically the first floor, so their room is just one floor up. Ian glances briefly past the curtains out the window, but leaves them closed. The door is heavy and there’s a chain lock Mickey slides shut for the few minutes they’re in here alone.

A door that locks from the inside.

“It’s nice.” Ian says, throwing his bag down onto the bed. 

“Better be.” Mickey replies, thinking of the cash he put down to get the place, but there’s no point dwelling on that now. Ian’s spread out on the bed, watching him, and Mickey stops himself from saying anything else before he ruins the moment. 

Instead, he pulls his jacket off. The night is young, and if they do end up using this room to rob a guy, they won’t exactly be sticking around after. Ian sits up and bounces on the mattress, indicating it’s soft; inviting Mickey to come see for himself, to lay on this strange bed that’s all theirs for the night and redo a fantasy they tried once. One where they can be naked and together and alone. 

After everything, he’s still got another chance to do it right. 

_ Please don’t let me fuck it all up again. _

Mickey pulls his shirt off over his head, but when he goes to sit on the bed, Ian jumps up. 

“What?”

“Nothing.”

But instead of sitting back down, he goes to look out the curtain again. 

“I’m not…” Ian starts, “What are we doing?”

“Working.” Mickey answers with a shrug. 

“No. I mean us. You didn’t get this place so we could have sex, right?”

For a second, Mickey doesn’t answer. Thinking Ian is baiting him into saying something stupid, even though he can’t think what. 

When Ian also remains silent, Mickey gives in and states the obvious, “I got this place to rip off old rich guys. You picked it!”

“I’m not a prostitute.” Ian says back, arms folded against his chest.

“I never fucking said you were! Give me your shirt. I’ll go down there, drag one of those fuckers back here, and  _ you _ beat the shit out of them.”

He’s both joking and serious. They need the money, but he can’t force Ian to go through with his half if he doesn’t want to. 

Ian doesn’t respond, and Mickey’s too frustrated with his silence to indulge this conversation any longer. The bag on the bed has Ian’s work clothes and an extra pair, and Mickey pulls a button-up out of it that’s a definite improvement over his own t-shirt, still laying on the floor where he left it.

“Stop, you’ll stretch it out.” 

The hem hangs a little low over his pants, but the arms are tight and Ian’s not wrong. Not that that’s going to stop him. Mickey continues to struggle pulling on the shirt until Ian’s had enough and attempts to wrestle it off and away from him. 

The sound of a few stitches popping can be heard over their struggle. 

Mickey hasn’t managed to get either of his arms all the way through the sleeves, but Ian also hasn’t succeeded in wrestling the shirt away from him. They continue at a stalemate until both of Mickey’s arms are pinned between his back and the bed, tangled up in the shirt, along with one of Ian’s who’s laying on top of him in a position that’s equal parts uncomfortable and arousing. 

There’s no good way to wiggle out of the shirt now even if he wanted to, but Ian seems serious about keeping the damage to it at a minimum. He starts to pull away slowly, and uses the arm behind Mickey’s back to force him to sit up too. After that, it’s easy enough to wiggle his arms out of the sleeves and toss the shirt aside.

At least now Gallagher no longer seems interested in debating the semantics of prostitution. Once the shirt is off, he tightens his arms around Mickey and leans forward into a kiss. Mickey grabs him around the middle in response and rolls them over so he can be on top. 

Now both their hair is long enough to grab, but it’s Mickey who finds Ian’s first. He really just wants to run his hands through it while Ian’s tongue does all the work in their mouths and he focuses on spreading his legs to straddle Ian’s hips and grind down. 

It’s not that he thinks about doing this constantly throughout the day, but whenever they do start making out, touching each other, it’s difficult to believe they’ve wasted so much of the day doing anything else.

It’s the perfect combination: the way Ian tastes, the softness of his lips, knowing that they  _ want _ each other. Knowing that Ian wants him. 

There’s no amount of money in the world that’s ever bought a tender, two-sided kiss like this. Ian could sell his body a thousand times and still not be a whore if he says he’s not. Not to Mickey at least.

To him, Gallagher is his best friend who he also gets to bang and might potentially be in love with, and if Ian wants to play tough guy while Mickey goes to the bar and plays hooker then, fuck it. He needs the money a lot more than he needs his pride; because they’ll never see any of the assholes in this hotel again, but tomorrow he and Ian will still have to go home to the Yards. 

Not yet, though. Not while Ian’s fingernails are digging into the skin of his back. Not when every kiss turns into another one, then another, and their hips are pressing together tightly as though they can make both pairs of pants between them disappear just by wishing it was so. Wishing is doing absolutely nothing for Mickey’s erection, trapped inside his jeans and just as desperate to be free as his lips are to continue kissing, and his lungs to get a full breath of air. 

When he pulls away, Ian’s hand leaves his shoulder and goes to the back of his neck forcing him into the kiss again. It’s hot and frustrating, and Mickey’s only choice of retaliation is to push Ian down harder into the mattress; to rub their hips together roughly as though he really does intend to get off like this. Ian only tightens his hold on Mickey’s neck, tugging at the short hairs there. 

Mickey’s been using his arms to hold himself up, but now that it’s clear they’re not going anywhere, he slides them between the mattress and Ian’s back. If they’re going to do nothing but make out on this bed he paid two hundred and fifty dollars for, then he’s going to hold Gallagher so tightly there’s no room for any insecurities between them. 

Tight enough that Mickey can somehow absorb some of Ian’s carisma before he has to go down there and needs it. 

After another minute of this, Ian finally pulls away and takes a few deep breaths. Mickey does the same, but more discreetly; breathing against Ian’s neck where everything smells like him. 

“Okay. Alright, I’ll do it.” Ian says.

“Sure?”

“Yeah.”

Mickey nods, grateful. Too grateful to express with words, but there are plenty of other ways to show gratitude and no reason not to do at least one before they go to work.

“Don’t you ever get tired,” Ian asks when Mickey starts scooting further down the bed, “Of giving blowjobs?”

What a stupid fucking question.

“No. You ever get tired of getting them?”

“No.”

“Then shut the fuck up.”

Ian lifts his hips so Mickey can pull his pants and boxers off, leaving his socks where they are. 

“I’d rather just fuck you.” Ian says, ignoring Mickey’s advice.

That does sound better. A lot better. Fucking incredible actually, and something about the unfamiliar surroundings only make the whole idea that much more exciting. 

“Alright, you can fuck me.” Mickey says like he’s granting a favor.

On his back, on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, Ian smiles. 

Mickey’s already at the bottom edge of the bed, one of his feet hanging over the side, and all Ian has to do is get up and move to stand behind him. All Mickey has to do is stand still even when he feels the creeping sensation up his spine of Ian approaching him from behind. At first it’s just the ghost of his presence, then it’s Ian’s hands on his shoulders, touching the skin of his back, the hairs on the nape of his neck. Mickey stays still and lets him. 

On the wall, framing the headboard, is a sheet of thick, velvet fabric held open with tassels in the same style as the curtains. It gives the space an over-the-top luxurious feel, and this is definitely going to be the fanciest bed Mickey’s ever been fucked in. 

Ian’s pressing his nose and lips against Mickey’s shoulder blades now. Not quite kissing him, not smelling him, just light touches; enticing and seductive. 

The cash he put up for this room was a down payment for a job they’re going to pull, not an attempt to buy Ian for the night. That’s the truth. Ian’s never offered himself up for sale to Mickey, but if he had, and Mickey did bring him back here, he knows Ian would make it worth his money.

Probably not something he should say out loud. 

Luckily, Ian can’t read his thoughts. He’s still behind Mickey, pushing his shoulders down until his face is resting against the gaudy gold comforter, touching his thighs over his jeans, and running his hands along Mickey’s inner leg like he’s taking inventory. Making Mickey’s dick hard and his mind empty with nothing but the lightest touches. Instead of reaching around, Ian slides his hands between Mickey’s legs and rubs his erection like that. Through his jeans and his boxers until Mickey is moving his hips, trying to press forward into the pressure of Ian’s palm. 

“Admit it. This is the real reason why you wanted me to skip work.”

Tempting. If Mickey thought the promise of fucking him would be enticing enough to keep Gallagher home, he’d use that excuse every night. 

He doesn’t answer. Can’t. Not while Ian continues to palm him through his jeans, and the pressure combines with the rough texture of his zipper in a way that’s just too good to want to stop. If he spreads his legs wider, he can press down harder into Ian’s hand which comes up to meet him a little more. It also pulls the fabric of his jeans tighter and triggers something in his mind that’s making the idea of getting fucked start to feel like a necessity; not just something that would be nice. Ian is behind him, and Mickey  _ is _ going to take off his pants, and then Ian’s cock is going to push inside him until Mickey doesn’t feel like he can take it anymore, and then he’s going to cum on this comforter with Ian’s dick all the way inside him and it’s going to feel so good there’s nothing in the world that compares with it. Good enough to force moans out of his mouth. 

Holy fuck, he’s so turned on and Ian just keeps palming him through his jeans like he’s got nothing better to do. 

“Ready.”

“What?”

“I’m ready.” Mickey says, covering Ian’s hand with one of his own to stop himself from getting distracted again. 

“Yeah, no shit.” Ian replies, and Mickey ignores him in favor of rolling over so he’s laying on his back. While he wiggles out of his pants, Ian smooths his own hair down with his hands and leans forward a little so they can kiss. There’s no pulling him back onto the bed though. Instead, Ian breaks the kiss, pushes his hands against Mickey’s chest until he’s laying with his back against the mattress again. He looks above and behind himself at the heavy curtain over the headboard. Is this the kind of place Ian’s always wanted to visit together? Now that they’re here, Ian doesn’t seem very interested in the decor at all. He’s staring at Mickey who’s finally naked and ready for whatever they’re going to do next.

“You gonna fuck me or paint a picture?”

“Like you’d sit still that long.” Ian says softly, with a smile. Then he grabs Mickey under the knees and slides him a few inches down the comforter until his legs are dangling off the bed and his ass is right at the edge. Ian sinks down to his knees. Mickey lets his eyes fall shut and briefly summons up the image of the chain-lock on the door, which he remembers sliding closed.

After that he does his best to hold his legs up while Ian leans in without any preamble and starts licking slow circles right around Mickey’s hole. They’ve only done this once, forever ago, and he’s neither forgotten nor obsessed about it, but now that Ian’s tongue is back down there - wet, warm, and overwhelmingly soft - he kind of does remember how it felt the first time: how more-than-willing he had been to forget any preconceived notions of decency and just let Ian continue. 

This time he doesn’t feel even the ghost of those misgivings. If Ian wants to spread his legs and lick his asshole on this hotel bed, that’s more than fine. It’s probably on the tamer side even, of the long list of things Mickey would let Ian do to him right now. 

Holding his legs up and bent up towards his chest is the hardest part, but Ian helps by keeping a firm grip on his thighs. Pushing Mickey’s legs up and out of the way so he can keep doing what he’s doing. Mickey keeps his own hands on the comforter; ignoring the pleasant, sometimes deep, throbbing in his dick that directly corresponds to what Ian’s tongue is doing and makes him feel kind of desperate to touch himself. 

They’re just getting started, and he’s not going to blow his load early no matter how good it feels when Ian’s tongue slips inside him and back out again, or when he runs it, flat and hot, all the way up Mickey’s ass to the space just below his balls. Then back again, and again, and on the third pass Mickey loses some of his composure, really has to dig his hands into the comforter to keep them where they are, and starts shifting and squirming in place, making it difficult for Ian to continue what he’s doing. 

“Had enough?”

“ _ No _ .”

Wait yes. He meant to say yes, but Ian takes him at his word and goes back to what he was doing: teasing tiny circles with the tip of his tongue in areas that are so sensitive, Mickey feels the movements like warm waves through his body. 

He can’t stay still anymore. The constant shifting of his body, the tension in his legs, and the rhythm of his hips which have started moving of their own accord, must all be annoying as hell for Gallagher, but still he doesn’t stop. He grips Mickey’s thighs tighter and instead of teasing, slow circles, he starts to move his tongue more purposefully. Pressing firmly and licking the same spot over and over again until all of Mickey’s restraint is replaced with a single-minded desire. 

He’d have to be handcuffed to the bed to not touch himself now. The warmth spreading through his crotch, precum dripping off the tip of his dick and onto his lower stomach. 

If only he didn’t feel so  _ empty _ .

“Finger me. Fuck. Please.”

Ian doesn’t hesitate. He pulls his tongue away and replaces it with one of his fingers that slides into Mickey easily, all at once. Like it belongs there, and before he can even ask for more, it’s joined by another one. Now he has that amazing stretched out feeling to go along with the smooth slide of his hand against his cock, and the still-clear memory of Ian’s tongue - in his ass, sliding up his taint - all of it to help him along. He’s right on the edge, so close to coming his mouth is making up sounds to try and express the way he’s feeling, when Ian curls his fingers and Mickey is left to try and cope with the sensation of them moving inside him - he can’t. Not on top of everything else, and all at once every muscle in his body starts to feel tight as Ian fingers him right into an orgasm that makes Mickey feel everything more intensely for a few seconds: the bed, the lights, the heat of the room, his love for Ian, their connection - pulling them towards each other over and over again. 

Life can ask anything of him, he’s willing to try, but all he wants is to be able to do it with Ian. That’s not so much to ask, right?

When he’s as relaxed and out of it as he ever is, Ian gets up, moves away, and reappears a few seconds later back between Mickey’s legs before he’s even managed to sit up. There’s no need to prove he’s still in the mood to get fucked, but - just in case Ian’s waiting for an invitation - Mickey lets his legs fall open wider over the edge of the bed to the sound of the top being popped off a bottle of lube. His breathing has slowed, his chest lifting in deep, slow motions while Ian lines himself up, but his heart knows better. It’s still thrumming, never slowed itself down, and it continues at the same pace while Ian starts pushing inside him. 

“You’re so fucking sexy.” Ian says, even though Mickey’s pretty sure he’s done nothing tonight except lay stretched out on the bed and let Ian do the kinds of things to him that have left this mess on his stomach. Even now, at best, he’s only going to do it all over again. All the same squirming and moaning as before because Ian’s dick makes him helpless. Trapped by his own need to have it inside him, while Ian seems equally helpless in the face of his own desire to pull out and push back in, to move his hips rhythmically even when Mickey’s desperate to just have him all the way inside for a full minute, or ten. 

Instead of telling Gallagher the obvious - that he’s fucking sexy too - Mickey starts touching himself again while they fuck and the bed squeaks below them. 

Ian asks him if this is alright, so he nods because it is. It’s alright. Ian fucking him because it makes them both feel good, the bed below him rocking in it’s frame, the chain on the door protecting them, the smell of Ian and the feeling of being so close to him. It’s alright and then some, and if they keep up this same rythm for much longer, the pressure, the push and pull of it that’s hitting Mickey right in the gut and making his hand clench, is going to do more than make his heart race. His dick’s going to get hard again, and he’s going to have another orgasm whether or not Ian makes it there too. 

He should probably do something about that, but what? 

Kissing is too distracting. Ian will respond at first, then taper off until he’s just panting into Mickey’s mouth. Grabbing Ian’s arms, digging his short nails into the skin there, seems to do the trick but it also backfires because Ian responds in kind, gets rougher until he’s fucking Mickey hard and there’s a few minutes completely devoid of thought where Ian pushes him deeper and deeper into the mattress and Mickey wouldn’t be able to say his own name if someone asked. 

That doesn’t last forever, but even when Ian does start to slow down again, Mickey is sweating and trembling and even further away from doing something sexy, and still Ian won’t let up. Won’t stop fucking Mickey into the mattress, licking right under his jawline, or digging his fingers into Mickey’s thighs like he’s perfectly aware how helpless the guy below him is. 

Maybe Mickey could say something sexy but the only thing coming to mind is how good all this feels and that’s pretty much a given. 

“I-” He starts, and, as though he’s been waiting for it, Ian slows immediately and pulls himself up so they can look at each other. 

“What?”

_ What. What. What. _

“Are you...this is good, yeah?” Mickey asks in a way that hopefully doesn’t sound as pathetic out loud as it did in his head. 

His own feelings about that are obvious. From the way his legs are trembling, the sweat in his hair, and his dick, so hard again it’s like he thinks this whole thing has been about him. Ian’s hard too, sure, but maybe he’s also expecting something  _ more _ . 

“What the fuck does that mean?” Ian says, but clarification isn’t Mickey’s strong suit, and the longer they stay like this - fucking but not fucking - the more foolish he feels for inturrupting them in the first place. 

“I mean, I don’t fucking suck at this. Do I?”

“At sex?” Ian sounds surprised, looks distracted, shifts impatiently. 

Mickey nods and, instead of responding, Ian repositions himself and starts thrusting again slowly. 

“What am I supposed to say to that?”

_ Nothing _

“Nothing.” 

Mickey doesn’t want a response to his stupid question. He wants to lay here and get fucked on this oversized bed, in this kitschy room, until Ian says they’re done and it’s time to go to work again. 

“How the fuck should I know?” Ian says with a sigh that takes the rest of his breath with it and forces him to inhale deeply before he can continue talking. “ _ I  _ like having sex with you. You’re all I think about.” 

It’s easier to believe such an obvious hyperbole when Mickey’s so well acquainted with his own thoughts. The way they interject Ian into everything; from the moment he wakes up to when he goes back to bed again. It’s as though someone’s attached an invisible rubber band to both of them. The further apart they are, the more tension it creates - in his body, his mind, the air around him - and it never goes away, never gets any better. Not until Ian is back beside him again. 

If it’s the same for the both of them, then...then it is. And he’s not doing anything by making up problems that aren’t there. 

There’s a few more seconds of silence before Ian asks, “You done?”

“Are  _ you  _ done?”

“Not even close.”

If that’s true, Mickey’s not complaining. It’s barely eight o’clock, and they’ve got plenty of time. Ian spends every second of it using Mickey in a way that suits them both just fine, and by the time he’s washing his hands in the bathroom and restyling his hair, it’s still five minutes to nine. 

“Alright.” Mickey says towards the open bathroom door, “I’m gonna hide in the closet, you bring the guy up, we’ll get a shot of him being a poof, then we tell him to pay up or we send that shit to the cops.”

From in front of the sink and mirror, Ian snorts.

“You know it’s not illegal to be gay, right?”

“Fucking prostitutes is, last time I checked.” Mickey answers.

“So is being a prostitute. You’re going to send a picture of me to the cops?”

“No. You’re missing the point. We just  _ tell _ him we’re gonna send it.”

“What if he doesn’t care?”

“Get one with a ring,” Mickey holds up his left hand as an example even though there’s no ring on it. “He’ll care.”

Ian comes out of the bathroom in his button-up, hair slicked down, looking good enough to pick up a nun if he felt like it. 

“Can I please explain irony to you?” He asks Mickey.

“Is it important?”

“...No?”

“Then do it later. Go get this guy, and we’ll get the fuck out of here.”

Mickey also wants to tell him just one more time to call if there’s trouble, to come straight back here - no stops - but Ian just waves him off as he heads out the door. 

Now there’s nothing to do but wait.

All plans are easier to execute in theory; it’s the practical application of them that trips people up. Mickey knows this, but still has a difficult time staying put in the dark closet. He swept the room, straightened the bed, hid their clothes, and now just has to accept there’s nothing he can do but wait for Ian to do his part. Which he will. Because it’s Ian, and if Mickey had his choice of partners, Gallagher would be right at the top of his list every time. 

All he has to do is wait.

And wait.

Wait among the dusty smelling extra sheets and garment bags, the complimentary safe at his feet, and ironing board at his back. 

Ian can take care of himself, has always been capable of that, but there’s something about the two of them together that seems to invite trouble. Walking home together, at the shop, at  _ his  _ place. Ian’s never invited trouble into his life the way he does every time he steps out with Mickey. Now here they are again, and there’s no denying Ian would have been safer working his shift at the Fairy Tale than he is helping Mickey with this shit. 

It’s too late to turn back. All he can do now is not take any chances, step in the second Ian’s done his job, and get them out of here and back to the Yards as soon as possible. 

He’s not entirely sure how long all of this should take, is prepared to wait thirty minutes before calling Ian and checking in, but it takes less than fifteen before he hears the room door open and close again.

The first voice he hears isn’t Ian’s which does nothing to calm his nerves. It’s a man’s, asking why they couldn't go to his room and order up some room service. Then he does hear Ian, answering with a simple deflection, and Mickey shouldn’t have worried at all because he sounds perfectly calm; maybe a little disinterested. 

“Still, I could order us some champagne if you’d like.” The man replies.

“Well it’s your time, but I’d hate to waste it.” Ian answers. Which is a pretty diplomatic way of saying ‘I don’t want to spend one more second with you than I have to’. Where did Gallagher learn to talk like that? It sure as shit wasn’t their highschool. 

Now Mickey’s listening to them undress and if he jumps out too soon the guy will have no problem saying he didn’t do anything and he was just sitting down to have a chat or some bullshit. Not that knowing all that makes it any easier to listen to this guy talk through the closet doors. 

He and Ian probably should have come up with a signal together. Something Ian could say so Mickey could call it and just jump out already, but maybe it’s better they didn’t. He doesn’t need a signal to know that piss-wad throwing himself onto Ian is already a step too far, and when he does pop out of the closet like a jack-in-the-box and clock the guy right in the face, it doesn’t really matter what the picture he took looks like. Ian’s done his job to perfection; from the ring to the white-picket family photos on the guy’s phone, this motherfucker is the posterboy for business trip indiscretions. All he’s missing is the words ‘don’t tell my wife’ written across his forehead. 

Tempting, but Mickey doesn’t have a pen on him.

“We’re gonna take a little trip downstairs. Go to the ATM machine.” He tells the john while Ian watches from the other side of the bed. 

“If you’re going to take my money, least you can do is have the twink suck me off.”

“That all he is to you, some twink?” 

Ian Gallagher: AWOL army prodigy with millions of dollars in damages to the US government, the boy who once picked a fight with Mickey holding nothing but a tire iron even though he knew there was a loaded gun somewhere in the room, who’s got a body and a dick like a Greek god and knows how to use them. Imagine thinking  _ that _ Ian was just some twink. It must be strange, living inside someone else’s head. 

“He gave me blue balls.”

Perfect set-ups aren’t nearly as common in his line of work as action movies make them seem. Tonight, not only does Mickey get to deliver a flawless line about black-and-blue balls, but Ian is here to see it. The whole thing is very satisfying. 

“Get all our shit, wipe everything down, leave the card on the bed, and meet me downstairs in ten minutes.” 

“Yes sir.” Ian says and throws up a flippant salute.

While Ian’s cleaning up, Mickey’s going to take this guy to the lobby and hit up the ATM machine he saw on the way in. 

First, he’s got to make a few things clear. Even without the conference, this hotel is obviously a few stars above what Mickey was expecting when he got dressed today. He’d stick out like a sore thumb hovering around this guy while he takes out a few grand cash. He looked but didn’t see any obvious security guards on their way in, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any around. A hotel this nice can afford to keep a few on the premises at least. He’s better off keeping the phone as collateral and waiting somewhere neutral for the cash. That means he has to make the consequences of not handing over the money painfully clear before he lets the guy step out of this room. 

Mickey makes him get dressed before starting. 

“Alright. Before you go doing anything stupid, just know I’ll text that picture to every fuckin’ number in your phone if I feel like it. Now unlock it.”

“Why the fuck would I do that? You just said you’d send that photo to everyone I know.”

Maybe driving a knee into the guy’s nutsack didn’t make his point well enough. Maybe he needs another demonstration of what’s going to happen to him if he keeps running his mouth. Before Mickey can give one, Ian interrupts. He walks over to them with his hand out, gesturing for Mickey to hand over the phone. When he does, Ian holds it in front of the guys face and says,

“Unlock your phone, or I’m going to ask the guy behind me to cut off your dick. And I don’t know...but I think he might actually do it.”

Ian says it convincingly enough that, for a second, Mickey considers. Would he, if Ian asked him to? Shit, maybe. 

The guy glances behind Ian and meets Mickey’s eyes for less than a second before looking away again. Then he holds out his hand for the phone, types in the code, and hands it back to Ian who hands it over to Mickey.

“What’s your number?”

“It’s listed in the phone.”

“Well why don’t you fucking tell me so I don’t accidentally dial your wife while I’m looking.”

Once he’s sent the photo, saved it on the guys phone, and demonstrated how easy it would be to send it straight into the inboxes of everyone on his contact list, they’re all ready for their trip downstairs. 

On the elevator the man, who really is in desperate need of a check to his confidence, makes one last attempt at arguing a case he’s clearly already lost. 

“What’s to stop me from calling the cops as soon as you give me my phone back?”

“Cops find me, they find him. And I’m just guessing, but I think they might be more interested in the fact he’s a minor than that you lost a couple grand.”

After that, the man’s got nothing else to say for the rest of the ride. 

At the lobby, Mickey goes straight for an armchair clustered around a coffee table with several others, all empty. The man stands just outside the elevator doors for a few seconds, watching Mickey walk away, then heads stiffly towards the ATM. 

While Mickey waits, he browses the guy’s phone. Nothing interesting. Some generic-ass texts from his wife:

[how was your flight?]

[text me when you get in]

[It was fine. Just landed.]

All the banking apps require passwords, but the email inbox opens right from the homescreen. The subject lines are all long, complicated, and full of numbers - Ref. 43-48;Gutierrez complaint pt.3 - and obviously work related. 

This guy must be pretty important. Mickey has to scroll down a few pages before he gets to emails that weren’t sent today. 

The photo he took isn’t even explicit. It’s just a clear shot of the guy, on a hotel bed, in his boxers, and behind him is Ian’s body. Mickey wouldn’t even have to crop it, he didn’t get Ian’s face in the shot, and only a small corner of his tattoo is visible. Not enough to identify him. 

It’s hardly damning, but it’s certainly suggestive enough to raise some questions if anyone ever got a hold of it. 

Mickey looks across the lobby and sees the man at the ATM machine, making selections on the pin pad. On the phone’s email screen, he selects compose.

While he waits for Ian to come down, Mickey taps the box at the top of the screen to select all the emails in the list of contacts. He attaches the photo, taps the subject line but can’t think of anything to say. As he’s looking around for inspiration, he spots the sign that first drew Ian to this place. 

Attorneys of America Conference. 

In the subject line, he writes: Me at the conference. 

Ian gets off the next time the elevator doors open, carrying Mickey’s jacket and wearing his own. He walks towards the front doors to wait. One the other side of the room, the man finishes up at the ATM and starts walking towards where Mickey’s waiting. 

Mickey hits send, locks the screen, and gets up to meet the guy somewhere in between. He makes him hand over the money first, to count it as discreetly as he can. There’s two grand in hundreds, and  _ that’s _ the biggest score Mickey’s ever made on one job. 

He tosses the phone over, then walks away as the man catches it and meets Ian at the door. They do a little half jog down the front steps and onto the sidewalk. When Ian starts to slow down, Mickey grabs him by the arm of his jackets and pulls him along; not trying to get anywhere but away. 

At the next corner, he turns around to look but no one’s following. They take a left and head towards the L. 

“That was crazy. I can’t believe we did that. How much did we make?”

“A grand each.” Mickey says with a smile and pats his pocket where the money is. 

“Nice. Know what I’m going to do with my half?”

“What?”

“Pay the fucking gas bill so we can keep taking hot showers.”

Mickey likes that idea, and by tomorrow he’ll have paid off Svetana too. After that their biggest problem will go back to being how the fuck they’re supposed to comfortably share a twin bed. 

Ian walks beside him but doesn’t attempt to hold his arm again. After the second block, Mickey starts to feel the chill of the night air and puts his jacket on. 

On the L, Ian takes the window seat while Mickey takes the one closer to the aisle. The car is practically empty, nothing but a few other late-night riders just trying to get home like they are. It’s too dark to see much outside, but Mickey would rather look at Ian’s reflection in the window anyways. Hidden between the spot where their legs touch on the bench, they’re holding hands. 

“How many times do you think we could get away with that?” Ian asks, and it sounds like he’s really considering it. 

“As much as we want, I guess. As long as we keep switching up hotels.”

It was meant to be a one-time thing, just for emergency, because he needed the money by tomorrow; but Ian’s got that look in his eyes that says he’s willing to invest a lot more energy into the scam than that.

“We should do it again. Are you busy tomorrow?”

“We’re not doing it again tomorrow. I got shit to do. Besides, don’t you work?”

Ian shrugs and asks Mickey what he’s doing tomorrow that’s so important.

“I gotta give Svetlana the money, for one. And go back to work. That fucking place is falling apart without me.”

“Is she your family, Mick? Is the baby?” The questions catch him off guard, and when he doesn’t respond, Ian continues, “Because if it’s like that, then I’m not okay with this. If you’re going to be her husband, that kid’s father, then we can’t see each other. I don’t want to keep you away from your family. I’m not some fucking homewrecker.”

“ _ You’re  _ my fucking family. I just gotta get this money to Svetlana. Get her off my back.”

“And the next time she asks for money?”

“Business will take care of it. I’ll go back tomorrow. Help out.”

“I’m not your side-piece Mickey.”

“I heard you the first time.”

Ian doesn’t look happy with that answer, but Mickey’s not sure what else he can do. He’s told Ian how it is, now Gallagher just needs to trust him. Shit won’t go down the same way it did before, but Mickey still needs a little more time to think before he decides what he’s going to do. He’s getting kind of sick of other people’s deadlines and ultimatums. A little patience won’t kill Ian; Mickey’s got a lot on his mind. 

Instead of harping on it more, Ian leans over to whisper in his ear like he’s going to tell Mickey a secret, but says, “Kiss me,” so quietly it’s impossible any of the other passengers heard him. 

Without turning his head, Mickey glances at the other people on the train. An old woman with a hand-knit hat carrying a single grocery bag on her lap. A man towards the front of the car wearing three different jackets all layered on top of each other and reading a well-worn paperback novel. A server still wearing her restaurant uniform who’s looking down at her phone, absorbed. 

“Come on. What are you afraid of? We could take them.” Ian teases, still whispering. 

Mickey finally turns his head so he can look at Ian. He’s not afraid of what these people could do to them; not really. 

What he’s more afraid of is their judgment. The looks. If he kissed Ian right now and that old lady didn’t like what she saw, there are plenty of ways she could express her disgust that fall short of literally beating them up. Maybe Mickey just doesn’t want to see it. Maybe he’d just rather not know. 

Ten minutes of discomfort on the train ride home is probably worth it, if it makes Ian happy; but even after Mickey decides there’s no harm in a quick peck, he has a hard time finding the nerve to go through with it. Instead of giving up on him, Ian leans a little closer and, when Mickey doesn’t pull away, closes the distance and places a kiss on his lips. 

It reminds him of the first time they kissed - in the van, almost a year ago. None of the other passengers spare them so much as a glance. Ian rests his head on Mickey’s shoulder, looking content, and Mickey goes back to watching their reflections in the window as the dark city passes by on the other side. 

*-*-*

It’s not unusual at all that they have to sneak in, have to close the back door behind them gently, softly; that they have to take off their shoes by the washer and then walk up the stairs with light feet. Better than the alternative of waking Fiona, or risking Debbie’s or Carl’s questions. If not making too much noise at night is the price Ian pays for living with a family that actually likes him, maybe it’s worth it. 

Or maybe not.

Lip is in the bedroom when they get back, sitting on Ian’s bed, holding Liam. 

“Where have you been?” He whispers the second he sees the two of them in the doorway. 

“Working. Is he okay?” Ian asks as he pulls his jacket off and leaves it on the dresser for Mickey to cover with his own. When Lip says the kid’s fine, and demonstrates it by putting Liam back into his crib to sleep, Ian continues, “Don’t you have school tomorrow?”

Lip looks exhausted, and ornery, and before he answers the question he glances over at Mickey making it clear he’d rather be having this conversation with his brother alone. 

“It’s fine. Someone has to take care of him.”

“Where’s Fiona?”

Mickey goes to lay down on the bed while they talk, tired from the night’s work and not particularly interested in this conversation. Lip says something noncommittal, and Ian catches Mickey’s eye for a second. He looks exasperated. 

“Still mad at her because she doesn’t want to be our mom anymore?”

“Yeah, well, maybe she should have thought about that before she took custody.”

“What are you going to do, take us all to court and sue her for it? Wanna be our dad?”

“No. I just want her to take care of her shit so I can take care of mine.”

“Liam’s not shit to take care of.” Ian says, sitting down on the part of the bed Mickey’s body isn’t already taking up and pulling his socks off. “I’m home now. Why don’t you just go back to college if being here is such a problem?”

“Yeah, thanks. That’s a lot of help Ian. And what are they supposed to eat for dinner while you and your boyfriend are off stripping?”

Ian doesn’t respond. Lip’s no longer whispering, and from the top of the bunk comes the sound of Carl rolling over in his sleep. 

“Were you always such a prick?” Ian asks his brother, “I can’t remember.”

“Maybe it has something to do with us barely getting by, and you bringing home another mouth to feed.”

“Mickey’s not a puppy from the pound,” Ian says with a smile, like the idea amuses him, “He can take care of himself.”

Lip doesn’t say anything to that. Mickey feels his eyes droop closed for a few long seconds, then forces them to open again. Ian continues:

“Nobody said shit when it was Mandy. So are you exempt from these rules, or is this a gay thing?”

“It’s not a gay thing.”

“If Mickey was my  _ girl _ friend -”

“Don’t do that. You know that’s not what this is.”

From the top bunk, Carl lets out an annoyed groan and mumbles something that sounds a lot like ‘shut the fuck up’. The older brothers ignore him.

“Then seriously, what is it?” Ian asks. “Mandy, Jimmy. You and Fiona can bring home anyone you want, but not me?”

“Why does it have to be Mickey?”

Fortunately no one’s looking for his input on this, because Mickey’s suddenly feeling a tight knot in his chest that kind of makes him want to roll over and face the wall. Ian is silent for so long, it’s surprising Lip doesn’t just leave. 

Finally, he says, “You know I used to ask Mandy why she was with you. When you wouldn’t answer her calls or texts. When you made her cry just because you were having a shit day. You know what she said?” Ian pauses here to give Lip a chance to answer, but he doesn’t. Carl’s awake now, peeking over the railing of the bunk and watching his brother’s tense conversation sleepily. Ian continues, “She said things like: he’s smart, he’s cool, he takes care of his family. I didn’t know why it bothered me so much back then, but now I do.” 

“What’s your fucking point?”

“My point is, you only ever talked about her, and she only ever talked about you.”

Lip looks confused, but Mickey understands just fine. He and Ian worked together tonight, tip-toed into the house together, are going to sleep together, and, no matter what they decide to do next, they’ll do it together. 

“I’ve been alone, and I’ve been in love. And, unlike you, I know the difference. If I’m here, he’s here. Mickey’s my fucking family.”

“ _ I’m _ your family.”

Ian raises his hands in exasperation. 

“I know. I just wish sometimes you’d fucking act like it. But unless you plan on going to court, taking guardianship of all of us, and doing all the shit Fiona already did, don’t fucking tell me who can sleep in my bed.”

“Lip’s going to take us from Fiona?”

No one but Mickey seemed to notice Carl was awake and listening now, and the two older Gallagher’s look up guiltily at him. 

“No. Of course not.” Ian says, “I was just kidding around.”

“I don’t want to go back to that foster house.” 

“No one’s taking you anywhere.” Lip says softly, and he walks over to the bunk so he can tuck Carl’s sheet back under the mattress where it’s gotten loose. “Go back to sleep.”

The three of them watch as Carl rolls back over and pulls the blankets around himself. 

Lip hovers by the bunk for a few seconds, then walks over to where Ian’s sitting on the bed. At first it looks like he’s going to say more, but then he reconsiders and pulls Ian’s head against his chest in an embrace instead. 

“What Mandy and I do is my business…” Lip looks out the window while he talks, still holding Ian close, but he glances at Mickey who’s looking back at him indifferently. “And vice versa. Deal?”

Ian pulls away, and Lip steps back. 

“Deal.”

“Deal?” This time when Lip asks, he’s looking right at Mickey who flips him off in disagreement. Ian might be his family, but Lip isn’t and if he keeps fucking around with Mandy, Mickey is going to take the time to  _ make _ it his business. Ian looks unconcerned with Mickey’s answer, and Lip glares but leaves the room without another word. In the silence that follows, Ian lays down on the bed so their shoulders are pressed together. It’s obvious he’s thinking about something, but Mickey can’t even begin to guess what. 

Neither of them break the silence.

*-*-*

At some point Mickey must have fallen asleep like that. When he wakes up groggily a few hours later, Ian is still next to him on the bed. He’s sitting up now with a pen light between his teeth pointing down at his journal. He’s writing restlessly, continuously; the sound of his pencil scratching against the paper is the only one in the room aside from Carl’s deep breathing.

Mickey watches Ian for a few minutes in the glow of his light, then drifts back off to sleep.

*-*-*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading and I promise I'll have more chapters up soon!


	5. Sweet Home Chicago

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Fiona starts slipping, domestic life at the Gallaghers begins to fall more on Mickey and Ian

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still haven't forgotten about this story I promise :) But it does feel like it'll probably be a few weeks between new chapters now. Sorry about that and please know I really do appreciate you guys reading and hope you enjoy! I think there'll only be one more chapter for this season after this, but we'll see :p

Season 4; Chapter 5: Sweet Home Chicago

The next time Mickey wakes up, it’s to the noise of another Gallagher morning. He’s starting to get used to it. This time it’s Carl making most of the noise. He says he’s feeling sick and can’t go to school today, and every few words he lets out a pitiful - and obviously fake - cough. Lip is having none of it. He’s dressing Liam with one hand and using his other to reach up and pull the blanket off Carl every time he tries to hide back under it. 

Mickey uses their distraction to claim the bathroom for himself before anyone else can think to. 

When he gets back out, Lip, Carl, and Liam have all made their way downstairs, but Ian’s still in the room pulling a pair of sweatpants over his boxers. 

“Wanna come out on a run with me?” He asks.

Out in the freezing cold, huffing and puffing behind Ian who couldn’t pick Mickey more than a few inches off the ground but could definitely run circles around him. 

“Sounds fun, but I’ll pass. Why don’t you come back to bed with me instead?”

“Later.” Ian says, pushing Mickey away. “I just want to get out there, you know? See the morning.”

“Alright fine. I’m gonna go get some breakfast.”

“In that shirt?”

“What’s wrong with my shirt?”

“Will you please just take it off so I can wash it when I get back?”

“Then what’ll I wear?”

Ian gives him a condescending look, and it’s the nicest possible way he could say ‘go home and get your shit already’, but it still rubs Mickey the wrong way.

“You know what? Fine. Take it.” He pulls his shirt off and goes into the hall to throw it down the shoot to the kitchen. 

“And your pants.”

“I need my pants.”

“Mickey.”

“I need my fucking pants. Alright?”

Ian’s poking his head out of the room to look at him, but doesn’t argue the point. 

Now Mickey’s shirtless, but the upstairs is covered with potential clothes scattered across every available surface. He’s got nothing against wearing a chick’s shirt under his jacket for the day, but somehow doesn’t think that he and Fiona are the same size. Fortunately, he’s spared finding out because Lip’s outfit from yesterday is sitting on a pile just inside his bedroom door, and Mickey pulls on the double shirts even though they’re cold and smell like unfamiliar aftershave. 

Downstairs, Lip’s running around making breakfast and picking up after the kids like a southside Cinderella, and the first chunk of cash Mickey made last night goes to him. Like he’s afraid Mickey might change his mind, Lip makes the money disappear before either of them can blink.

Ian comes down the stairs less than a minute later, but it doesn’t look like he’s going to stay for breakfast. He’s talking to Lip with a tone and pace Mickey’s starting to recognize, and not in a good way.

“I have a lot of ideas for games.”

What the fuck is he talking about now? He’s never once mentioned an interest in any of that shit, and they’re too far into the relationship now for Mickey not to have noticed a secret hobby. Ian’s only hobbies are Mickey, playing drill instructor to himself, and hitting on guys for money. On top of that, Ian’s not going to have any interest in gaming tomorrow. Just like how he immediately lost interest in being an electrician, or photographer, or making beer, or any of the other shit he brought up and then instantly forgot. Maybe forgot is the wrong word; it’s not amnesia. Ian can remember the things he brought up yesterday. It’s more like he just doesn’t want to talk about it anymore, and gets mad at anyone, Mickey included, that tries to bring it up again. He wasn’t always like this. When he used to have an idea, a plan he was all of the sudden obsessed with, he’d get it done before moving on to the next one. Now…

Now he just lacks focus. That’s all. There’s just too much going on inside Ian’s head, and once he finds the thing he really wants to concentrate on it’ll get better. 

“Well?” Lip says to him as soon as Ian leaves out the front door for his jog. 

“Well, what?” 

Whatever Mickey’s thinking about Ian, it sure as shit isn’t Lip’s business. 

“Well he’s bouncing up the fucking walls. Is he on something? Have you talked to him?”

“What do I look like, a fucking PSA? If he wants to get high, that’s none of my fucking business.” 

Rather than get annoyed at Mickey, Lip stands silently in the kitchen looking worried; worried about his brother. 

“So you haven’t seen him take anything? If you guys are snorting coke and fucking around at the clubs, I don’t care. I just want to know.”

Mickey rubs his temples, shakes his head.

“The fuck does it matter?” He asks. 

“It matters to me.  _ Ian _ matters to me. I’d just feel a lot better if I knew for sure that’s what’s going on with him.”

While that might be the case, Mickey can’t help him.

“I don’t know. I’ve seen him- Nothing crazy. Just pills. But I can’t be with him all the time.” Mickey gestures towards the front door to prove his point. Maybe when Ian said ‘go for a run’ what he really meant was ‘meet up with my dealer’. He’s grown, he can do what he wants, and even if Lip wanted to tell him what to do, he couldn’t. 

Now here Mickey is, gossiping about Ian behind his back, and to Lip of all people. 

“You know what, I’m done. You got a problem with Ian, take it up with him.”

“Thanks Mickey. You’re a big fucking help, like always.”

He’s being sarcastic, but Mickey doesn’t feel bad. He’s not going to sit around and help Ian’s brother judge him, and he’s definitely not going to sit around and judge Ian himself. They’re together; that’s literally the only thing that matters. 

But still, what could Gallagher possibly be into that’s so bad he doesn’t think he could share it with Mickey?

*-*-*

The kids leave for school, Lip takes Liam to college with him because the dorms have heat that actually works all the time, and Mickey flips through the channels on the TV waiting for Ian to get home. 

How long does a run take?

The front door finally opens, but it’s only Fiona. She tears her winter hat off in frustration and throws it on the floor, but can only stand to leave it there for a few seconds before picking it up again and hanging it on the mounted coat rack. 

She sits down on the couch, stares at the TV, and says nothing to him. 

Five minutes later, Ian comes home breathing heavily and tapping snow off his running shoes. He sits down on the couch between the two of them and rests his arm behind Mickey’s head, bringing with him the smell of sweat and cold air. Sandwiched between Mickey and Fiona, smiling and flushed, he looks like the only kid who passed the test in class full of students about to get lectured for failing. 

He only stays still for a minute before he notices Mickey wearing Lip’s shirt, remembers the laundry, and jumps back up to fill the washing machine. 

Focus, that’s all Ian needs. Hell, Mickey could use some of his own right now. Except, all the things he’s supposed to be focusing on make him feel sick to his stomach and do nothing to encourage him to get off this couch. 

“What are you doing today, Mick?” Ian calls from the kitchen as though he was reading his thoughts. 

“Gotta go to the bar. Check on things.” And pay Svetlana so she doesn’t rat them out to Terry and put a bounty on his head. 

“Are you going to check on the baby?”

“No.” 

Ian doesn’t respond and, out of all the people in the world, there’s only one whose opinion really matters, so he adds, “Gonna give Svetlana that money we made. She can buy it food, or whatever.”

“You want my cut too?” 

“Fuck no. Keep it.”

“You guys made money last night?” Fiona asks, not hiding her jealousy, but it doesn’t sound like she wants a cut; just that she wishes she had also been so lucky. 

“Yeah. We um…” Ian starts, but then it takes him a few seconds to decide what he’s going to tell her. “Did something for this guy. You want some?”

“No, but if you see anyone out there hiring, could you tell them I’m a good employee and not a baby killer.”

Her voice starts to crack with emotion towards the end, and Mickey feels himself pulling away from her side of the couch. It’s just that she probably wants some space if she’s sad, and doesn’t need him near her. 

“Hey!” Ian says, finally coming back from the kitchen. “You’re not a baby killer. It was an accident, Liam’s fine. Nobody’s mad at you.”

Fortunately Fiona misses the incredulous look Mickey shoots Ian because she’s busy doing the exact same thing. 

Instead of becoming a game designer, or whatever it was he was talking about this morning, Ian agrees to stay home and help Fiona look for work on the internet while Mickey goes to the bar. 

There’s a hint of a plan forming in his mind. A long-term solution to everything where the rub-n-tug makes a steady stream of income for him, Ian continues to work doing whatever the hell he wants, and the two of them continue to live together. Maybe forever. Here at the Gallaghers, or at his fucking house while Terry rots in county, or their own apartment. It doesn’t matter as long as they’re together, and the more time he spends with Ian, the more possible it all seems. 

First, he needs to go to the Alibi. One step at a time.

Just as he’s leaving the house, Kenyatta finds him on the porch. Mandy brought the guy home after everything that happened with Ian last year, so there’s no reason to worry. No reason to think Kenyatta gives two shits who Mickey’s staying with. He’s having wife problems is all, and staying with an old friend. 

Kenyatta just wants to know where Mandy is anyways. 

Mandy and a jealous boyfriend, now that’s a new concept. As far as Mickey knows, Lip and Kenyatta are the only ones who have ever come back for seconds, and it didn’t take long for Lip to get his fill. Now he’s stringing Mandy along again, blowing up the relationship she built while he was gone because it makes him feel good. 

Mickey doesn’t feel bad at all himself, telling Kenyatta where to find him. It’s about time Lip payed the price for all his fucking around. You don’t get to just do whatever you want all the time and leave everyone else to clean up the mess. The eldest Gallagher brother is just going to have to sleep in the bed he made, and Mickey’s more than happy to help that along. Hell, he’d follow Kenyatta to the college and watch the show himself, if he didn’t have to bring this money to Svetlana. 

Serves Lip right anyways, toying with Mandy’s feelings like that. What gives him the right to treat her like she’s always second best?

*-*-*

“Yvegenny.” Svetlana says, like it’s supposed to mean something to him. It doesn’t sound like any of the typical slurs and curses she throws his way, but that’s only because it’s apparently what she’s decided to name the kid. Why’d she even ask for his opinion before, if she wasn’t going to keep the name he chose?

Yvegenny doesn’t even mean fuck you in Russian. It’s just the name of her father. An odd choice. For all his faults, Terry never sold any of his kids for a month’s worth of rent, but Mickey still wouldn’t name so much as a goldfish after him. Maybe Svetlana has those daddy issues people talk about. Like Ian, sleeping with older men because Frank never read him a bedtime story. Maybe that’s why she sleeps with Terry.

Why is he even thinking about this? Who she fucks off the clock has absolutely nothing to do with him. 

“We’re square.” He says, and puts the money on the counter. As far as he’s concerned, they’re done, and now he’s free not to think about her for the foreseeable future. Of course, that’s not how shake-downs work. Once the person knows they can get something from you, they won’t stop until they’ve got it all. 

“Come home.” She says, instead of ‘thank you, goodbye’ and all she’s doing is making this whole thing more difficult for both of them. 

“That wasn’t the deal.” He says back, but deals made in desperation are rarely kept, and this one’s no exception. 

“If you breathe one word of what you think you know,” Mickey starts, trying to head-off any more requests from her before she can make them, but he’s unsure of how he’s going to finish until the words seem to form themselves. “I’m gonna make sure that kid’s an orphan.”

Threats are a calculation; promises often quid-pro-quo. This isn’t either of those. It’s just a statement born from so much anger at this woman, he didn’t even have to think of the words before he said them. Maybe that’s what people mean when they say ‘speaking from the heart’. 

Kevin doesn’t appreciate his new-found eloquence, and tells Mickey to cool it on the domestic violence. As if anyone in the bar cares. 

Svetlana also doesn’t appear to appreciate the gravity of his words, but it makes little difference. He’s never going home to her. Not ever. If she wants to cause hell in his life, then she better be ready. She’s a lot better off with a husband who has something to lose, than nothing, but she’s going to have to figure that out on her own. 

Hopefully before she does something stupid, for all their sakes. 

*-*-*

It’s only mid afternoon but he leaves the bar after his conversation with Sveltana. 

On the walk home, in the crisp air, the anger he was feeling towards her at the Alibi slips away. He’s never going back to her; never sharing a bed with her again. Even after having done it for months, now that he’s gotten away it’s impossible to imagine going back. Not just leaving Ian, but being with  _ her _ . Now, on the other side, he can’t explain how he lived with her all this time, how he survived every moment of feeling his skin crawl when she was near. The only thing he can think is that he got used to it, but he’ll never be able to go back to that. Not now that he remembers what it’s like not feeling fucking dead inside all the time.

She’s right about one thing though: he does need to go home. For his clothes and gun and toothbrush because he’s done this time. He’s going to stay with Ian now, and he’s never going back again. 

*-*-*

He’s still thinking along these lines when he gets to his house. After all the time he’s spent at the Gallaghers, the place smells funny to him when he first walks in. That might have more to do with the drunk whore on the couch and the fussing baby in its crib though. 

He’s thinking about that fucking baby, about where he put his hoodie, about his underwear and whether or not he can get by just wearing Ian’s for awhile. He’s thinking about how this house used to be  _ his _ , and when he opens the door to the bathroom and sees Mandy beaten bloody in front of the mirror he thinks,  _ holy fuck someone beat the shit out of Mandy _ , but doesn’t have any time to process the thought before she’s pushing him out and slamming the door shut behind him. 

On the other side of the door he has more time to think. Who beat Mandy? It wasn’t the baby or the woman on the couch. Terry’s inside, Iggy too. Their other brothers have never raised a hand against her, as far as he knows, and that pretty much leaves just the one other person who could have done it. 

Mickey can still hear Fuck You crying in the other room, but otherwise his mind is momentarily occupied; fully consumed going from his conversation with Kenyatta this morning to the state of Mandy’s face on the other side of the door behind him. Then back through all those events again as though he can somehow change his actions retroactively. 

That was supposed to be Lip. It was supposed to be  _ Lip _ .

Does that make what he did any better?

After half a minute of just standing there, Mickey raps his knuckles on the bathroom door. 

There’s no answer so he waits while the baby continues to fuss in the other room. 

Another minute goes by before he knocks again, and when there’s no answer this time either, he tries the knob but it’s locked now. 

“Mandy. Just let me help.”

But there’s still no answer. Not that he doesn’t understand: the wanting to be alone, hating the idea of pity even though what other people are really offering you is compassion. 

The next time he knocks, he does it a lot harder; with his fist like he’s pounding. 

“I gotta get my shit. So let me in now, or I’m gonna break this fucking door down.”

This time, in the quiet after he speaks, he hears the lock on the knob snick open. 

He opens the door slowly, but as soon as there’s room Mandy tries to push past him, and he has to brace his arm against the door frame to keep her from leaving. She doesn’t want his help, but she’s never left him when their positions were reversed. He’d been better off for it too, because she stayed. 

“We gotta clean it, or it’ll get infected.”

“I took care of it.” She says, but under the strands of hair covering her face, Mickey can still see blood. “I’m not a dumb fucking asshole like you.”

She’s right. He is a dumb, fucking asshole. How many times does he have to prove it before he finally just accepts it’s true?

But he’s not the kind of dumb, fucking asshole who’s going to let his sister walk away looking like that. He’s looking at her, and she’s looking at the ground; still pushing against his arm and waiting for him to pull it away. They both listen as the woman in the other room makes some noise getting off the couch, picks the baby up out of the crib, and momentarily ends the crying. This is followed by a light thump, an ‘oops’ sound universal to any language, and then the crying starts up again. 

“She’s going to kill him.” Mandy says, but it’s not followed up by any sort of desire to help. 

“Good.” Mickey says back and, god help him, he kind of means it. It’s not Fuck You’s fault he was born with no rights - no rights to Mickey’s house, his food, his bed. It’s not Fuck You’s fault his mother brought him into this world when she herself had nothing. But it is the reality. The only things that boy and his mother are ever going to have is what they steal from others, and for him Mickey feels no compassion, only pity. 

“C’mon.” He says, crowding Mandy back into the bathroom before she can try to get away. “Let’s get this fixed up so we can get the fuck out of here.”

_ This _ being her face, even though Mickey’s not sure exactly what he can do for her. Wipe the blood off, at least, and there’s got to be some bandages around here somewhere.

With the bathroom door closed behind them, the sound of crying becomes blissfully faint. 

Mickey turns the sink faucet on hot, and waits for the water to go from freezing to tepid. Mandy sits on the toilet seat and looks at nothing in particular. Her left eye is swollen, and she probably can’t see anything out of it at all. 

There are already a few bloody hand-towels on the edge of the sink. Mickey grabs one, holds it under the water, rings it out, and does it again until all of Mandy’s blood has rinsed through his fingers and down the drain. Now the towel is warm to the touch. That done, he goes over to the toilet where Mandy is sitting and tells her to tilt her head back, which she does. 

He knows from experience it must be easier for him to clean the cuts than it was for her. His hands aren’t shaking, he can’t feel the sting as the towel passes over particularly tender spots. Mandy winces and jerks back a few times while he wipes the rest of the blood away, but says nothing. 

After that, it’s the peroxide. The Brown Bottle his mom used to call it when she was laying in bed with bruises exactly like Mandy’s - bedroom curtains drawn, lights off - and directing Mickey to get her ‘just a few things’ for her headache. Whatever the fuck alcohol does to cuts might be a mystery, but Mickey knows it’s an important step - maybe the most important step - and has to be done no matter how unpleasant. 

Mandy’s already taken the bottle out and next to it on the sink is a single, damp cotton ball with a few smudges of red on it. She looks up at him inscrutably, but he knows what she wants: for him to sign off on her shoddy work and move on to the next step. 

“Almost done.” He says instead. 

She tries to turn away from him when he brings the freshly soaked cotton ball to her face, but he uses a combination of stubborn patience and forced compliance to get her to sit still while he dabs it on the cuts. 

“The pain means it’s working!” He says the old expression with Mandy’s palm is on his face, trying unsuccessfully to push him away. Their struggle isn’t rough, under other circumstances it might actually be comical, but Mickey isn’t going to laugh. Not unless Mandy does first, and she doesn’t seem to be in a very humorous mood.

Three cotton balls, and a few sore spots of his own, later and the job’s finally done. After that he sticks a few bandages in places where they might actually do some good, and leans back against the sink to admire his handiwork. She’s still looking at him like an angry wolf; like he could make one wrong move and she’d maul him to death with claws that are kept sharp by the rough edge of a nail file, but at least she looks ready now. Ready to do the last little bit of what they have to today before they can finally relax. 

“Go get some clothes. We’re leaving.” He says.

“Where? We don’t have any money.”

“Ian’s.”

Whatever happens next, Ian will know what to do. Mandy accepts his answer and goes to get her things while he finishes grabbing his own. 

They take only what they can carry, and walk down the block together to the Gallaghers. Leaving their own house to the baby and Kenyatta. To Svetlana. To whoever wants to use it until they decide it’s time to return and take it back for themselves. 

*-*-*

Ian’s alone at the Gallagher’s when they come in, doing push-ups on the floor between the living room and the kitchen. It’s the first nice thing Mickey’s seen all day. He walks up and rests his foot on Ian’s back, challenging him, waiting to see if Ian will be able to push up against the extra weight. He does, but the next time Mickey presses down even harder and Ian has to break form. He puts his knees and elbows on the ground, grunting from the effort, unwilling to let Mickey push him down against the floor without a fight. 

Ian wins, but just barely; it’s Mickey’s height that loses it for him. Ian only has to push himself up a few more inches before Mickey’s leg won’t bend any further and he has to stumble away or risk Gallagher knocking him back right onto his ass.

When Ian rolls over to look at him, he’s smiling triumphantly. Then his gaze slides past Mickey and the smile falls right off his face.

“What happened?”

He thinks Mandy will answer for herself, but she just looks at him and says nothing. Ian stands up, obviously concerned, but when she doesn’t answer right away, he looks at Mickey too.

Under both their stares, Mickey throws up his hands and says, “What can I say? I lost my temper.” Because it’s easier to joke than admit he riled Kenyatta up and might be the worst big brother ever.

Ian lets out a long-suffering, exasperated sigh like Mickey’s the dumbest fucker he’s ever met, and Mandy punches him in the arm, hard. 

“That’s not funny, asshole.” She says. 

“It was Kenyatta, wasn’t it?” Ian asks. His initial trepidation after first seeing her is gone now, and when he reaches out gingerly to touch her cheek and tilt her chin, she lets him. “I told you he was bad news after he freaked out over us texting.”

“It’s not like that.” She says, but doesn’t elaborate. 

Ian’s only got an hour or so because he has to get to work, but he spends it making sure Mandy’s comfortable, showered, in her pajamas, and set up in Lip’s room for the night to sleep. 

They don’t need Mickey for this part, so he stays downstairs and watches TV. 

When Ian comes back, they both agree that Mandy will stay here for the foreseeable future, and Mickey wants to express his gratitude. Not with words, but with his lips and tongue doing things other than talking. Things like kissing Ian - on the mouth and neck and collarbone - and his hands can help too. They can slide under Ian’s shirt, up his spine, then down into the back pockets of his jeans where they can squeeze the softest part of him, pulling Ian even deeper into the kiss. 

“Let me come to work with you.” He says, because he can feel from the remaining tension between them that Ian has no intention of staying long. 

“Not tonight. You have to be here. What if Kenyatta comes by looking for her? And the kids. I don’t know where Fiona is, but they’re going to be home soon and they need dinner. Please, Mick, I need your help tonight.”

“Yeah. Alright.”

Ian doesn’t need to get his panties in a bunch. Mickey can stay here and microwave a few corn dogs for Debbie and Carl; can watch the house and make sure Kenyatta knows Mandy’s not going home to him. 

He can spend one night without Ian. No big deal. 

“Just...don’t stay out too late.”

“Work, and then straight home.” Ian agrees. 

*-*-*

Twenty minutes after Ian leaves for work, Carl and Debbie come home. Liam is still at college with Lip, and that leaves just two mouths to feed; three, including his, or four, if Mandy wants to eat.

A sudden image appears in Mickey’s mind: him, in a frilly white apron, hair all combed flat. He’s in the Gallagher kitchen scooping leftovers from a tupperware; heating them back up so that when Ian gets home from work - with a briefcase in this fantasy, not booty shorts - dinner will be warm and waiting for him, and he’ll swoop into the kitchen, kiss Mickey on the cheek, and say, “Honey, I’m home!”

Jesus Christ.

It’s probably time to start cutting back on the TV. Just not tonight because he has no idea how else to keep the kids occupied. Especially when Fiona’s curfew comes and goes, and she’s still nowhere to be seen. It’s no big deal. If they catch her at it, and they will, she’ll do a little jail time and be out before the kids graduate from their next year of school. Telling Debbie that doesn’t seem to make her any less worried, but - other than drawing a clear line that no one in this house is calling any police stations or hospitals until Ian is home - Mickey’s not sure what else to say to her. 

Mandy might know, but she’s still sleeping. The second time Mickey offers up his opinion that they should just fucking relax about Fiona, Debbie lets out a frustrated yell and disappears upstairs. 

“Nice one,” Carl taunts from the couch, but doesn’t offer up any opinions on how Mickey should have dealt with it instead.

“Fuck off. You want dinner?”

“Can we get pizza?” Carl asks, and that at least is advice Mickey can use. 

Mandy’s still sleeping when Mickey goes up to check, but Debbie forgives him long enough to tell him what kind of pizza she wants so Mickey can place the order.

The closest place doesn’t deliver, but he needs more cigarettes anyways. Before he goes, he sits Carl down. 

“Know how to use one of these?”

The way Carl looks at his glock like it’s made out of gold and diamonds isn’t very reassuring, but on the off-chance Kenyatta does come here while he’s out, Mickey would rather they had it than not. 

“Yeah totally.” Carl says in answer to his question. 

Mickey goes to hand him the gun, thinks twice, moves so that he’s standing behind Carl, and then hands it over.

“Now put your hand around the- No! Don’t touch the trigger. Listen…” 

Mickey puts Carl’s hand right and shows him where the sights are with the barrel pointing harmlessly towards the kitchen. “Now pull the slide back.”

Carl tries, but he’s holding the gun so gingerly, the first two times he pulls on it the slide snicks back too fast without chambering anything. Mickey takes it from him, pulls the slide back easily, and sets it on the coffee table. 

“Don’t touch that unless you need it. If I come back and it’s not right where I fucking left it, you all better be dead or dying.”

Carl agrees to the terms and Mickey closes the front door behind him, looking up and down the street for potential problems before he leaves. Everything is quiet and dark, two doors down he can see lights on at Kevin and Veronica’s house. 

Even stopping for cigarettes, it takes him less than ten minutes to walk to the pizza place. It’s the middle of the week, the shop itself is slow, and he and the girl behind the counter recognize each other at the same time. It’s Angie; hair up in a net, greasy apron on, and wearing the look of someone whose shift has run a few hours too long. 

She asks him what he’s doing here before he can ask her the same. 

“Picking up an order. Gallagher. You work here now?”

“Yeah. Monday through Friday, and some Sundays too.” She says with a shrug. 

The last time they saw each other, Mickey had been in a bad place. All that stuff seems like so long ago now, but there’s no covering his current embarrassment at having exposed himself in a moment of weakness to her before. 

He likes Angie, but right now all he wants to do is pay for the pizza and get the hell out of here before she can bring up anything that happened between them. She must feel the same way, or can see the discomfort on his face, because she finds the order slip for Gallagher and tells him the total before he has to ask again. 

When she takes the cash from him, she holds it in her hands for a moment and looks at it before hitting the button on the register and making the drawer slide out. 

“I heard you got married.”

So he couldn’t get out of here fast enough to avoid thinking about all that shit after all. 

“Yeah. Fucking pain in the ass.”

_ What else is there to say about marriage? _

For just a second he remembers being at Angie’s place, before all the shit with Svetlana, and eating a lunch she had made for him.

“Shoulda asked you instead,” He says as she hands him the warm pizza boxes. “When I had the chance. Thought about it.”

It’s a weird thing to say; it must be judging by the look on her face. The polite smile is gone, and in its place is a small frown; a semi-private one that mostly shows through her eyes. 

All she says is ‘Oh’, and their transaction is done, and Mickey’s got the pizza. He should definitely leave now. 

“Alright, thanks. And...uh, good luck with your work.”

_ Great, _ he thinks as he carries the pizzas back to the Gallagher’s,  _ If Angie didn’t think I was a freak before, she definitely does now.  _

Not that it matters, but is it really so much to ask that someone in this fucking city has even the tiniest bit of respect for him? It feels like, at this point, he should have earned some by now. 

The gun isn’t in the exact same spot as he left it when he gets back, but it’s still on the coffee table, Carl didn’t shoot himself with it, and no one came by while he was gone, so Mickey takes it as a win. 

Now that he’s brought pizza back, Debbie seems less pissed, and she and Carl are happy enough to let him pick what they watch as the three of them eat it on the couch. 

He settles for a Bruce Willis movie on cable and no one complains. 

Babysitting's not so bad. Mickey drinks a beer from the fridge, smokes on the porch, talks to the kids; which mostly consists of them talking at him - about school, boyfriends, girlfriends, whatever gossip they have about the older siblings. Carl wants to know about Juvie and what it’s like being married to a chick. Debbie’s more interested in details about Svetlana’s pregnancy, and what he and Ian’s long-term plans are. When he tells them to shut up and stop bothering him, they listen, and when he changes the channel, they don’t complain. 

It gets later and later, and still Ian and Fiona don’t come home. He should tell the kids to go to bed, but when he makes the suggestion they both start arguing with him about it immediately, and he gives up. Just one more hour. Sure, why not? They’re kids; so what if they’re tired in the morning? What do they have to be up early for anyways?

*-*-*

Mickey’s not entirely sure when he falls asleep, but it must have been shortly after the kids asked for an extension of their bedtime because he doesn’t remember much after that. He wakes up feeling like he’s being pinned down by a heavy weight and can sense a shadow standing over him. It scares the shit out of him until he realizes it’s just Ian, back from work and reaching down to grab the remote off the coffee table so he can shut the TV off. Even then it takes his mind a few more seconds to calm down, to understand the weight on him is just Debbie and Carl, still asleep, leaning on him. 

“Sorry,” Ian whispers when he sees Mickey awake. “I didn’t mean to wake you. You guys looked so peaceful.”

“‘S fine. What time is it?”

“Three.”

“Christ. You just get home?”

Instead of answering, Ian shakes Debbie awake and convinces her to go upstairs to sleep in her own bed with a patience Mickey didn’t know he had. 

Carl can stay on the couch for the night. Not only because Ian’s busy walking Debbie upstairs and Mickey doesn’t feel like testing his own patience getting Carl to do the same, but also because it will be nice to have the room to themselves, if only for a few hours. 

He throws a blanket over Carl and meets Ian upstairs just as he’s closing Debbie’s door. 

“Where’s Carl?” He asks. 

“Sleeping. He’ll be fine.”

For once, the house is actually quiet, the night into its deepest hour. The cold is more of a comfort than a nuisance when Mickey knows he and Ian are about to get into bed together, and there isn’t a draft in this house strong enough to find them there. 

“Wanna go to bed?” He did what Ian wanted: fed the kids, kept everyone safe. 

“I have to shower.” Ian says, but in a tone that sounds like he’d rather have Mickey convince him otherwise. 

“I like the way you smell.” 

It’s the truth, and also a thing between them, and it makes Ian smile. It’s also the perfect way to transition from whispering in the hallway to kissing in Ian’s bed where even the cold coming through the windowpane can’t make much of an impact compared to the warmth of Ian’s body underneath all his clothes. 

Ian’s mouth tastes bitter and it’s the only thing - the tiniest thing, really - that isn’t perfect. If he’s popping pills to get through work, whatever. If he’s taking drugs even on his off days, hiding it from Mickey...if it’s changing his entire personality…

Thinking about it makes Mickey pull away; he’s curious enough, in the moment, to want answers  _ before _ they fuck. But when Ian asks him what’s wrong, the thought of saying anything about his worries and ruining the mood makes Mickey lie instead. 

“Thought maybe we should take some of these off.” He tugs at the zipper of Ian’s winter jacket. Underneath is a thin button-up, and under that, a tank top. Ian sits up on the bed and takes his jacket off while Mickey watches. 

Mandy is in the other room, safe. They’re here together. On a bed. In a house. No one needs them for anything else tonight. It’s exactly how he always wanted it, when they were younger. And now that he’s nineteen, everything he wanted, he has. He wants to share this good feeling, but isn’t sure how to put it into words. Instead, he waits until Ian’s finished pulling off his tank top and kisses him under the moonlight coming in through the window. 

Now Mickey’s the one who’s overdressed, but he waits until they’ve had their fill of each other’s lips, until their tongues have gone over every available spot at least once and their mouths taste equally like bitter pills and pizza. Then he stands up and starts pulling off his own clothes. 

Ian looks impossibly beautiful in this light. Laying sprawled out on the twin bed, still in his jeans; if he was any taller, his feet would be hanging off the end. The tattoo on his ribs looks dark and intricate, his hair black until he shifts and catches the light just right and it turns red again. Every angle on him - his chin, his collarbone, his hips - casts a shadow and makes him look so mysterious it’s kind of a miracle Mickey gets to see him like this at all. 

“You look so good.” That was supposed to be Mickey’s line, but Ian stole it right out of his brain and said it first. If he really thinks that, and isn’t just saying it, then it’s only because he can’t see what Mickey’s seeing. 

He strikes a pose, naked in the moonlight, for Ian to admire.

“Damn right.” He says.

Instead of taking his own pants off, Ian stands up too and runs his hands through Mickey’s hair, brings their faces closer together. 

“How about…” Ian starts, pressing their cheeks together and talking in a whisper. “I tell you all the things I want to do to you, and then you tell me which ones you’ll let me do.” 

“Alright. Deal.”

“Okay. I want to finger you until you cum.”

“Then fucking do it.”

“Sixty-nining?”

“...Alright.”

“I want to fuck you in high heels.”

“Wait. You in the heels, or me?”

“You. Of course. Why would I wear the heels?” Ian clarifies, looking annoyed Mickey has to ask. 

“Fine I’ll wear the fucking heels.” It’s easy enough to agree because there’s no way in hell they’re ever going to find a pair of heels that fit Mickey, and already Ian appears to be running out of special requests. While he hesitates, Mickey takes the chance to undo his belt for him and drop his pants to the floor. 

Instead of underwear, Ian’s innermost layer is nothing but those tight, sparkly shorts. On his face is a look that tells Mickey he’s still imagining the heels. He must not like the image his mind has conjured up. 

“You know what, nevermind.” He says as if there’s a danger of Mickey pulling out a pair of stilettos from god-knows-where and demanding Ian make good on his suggestion right now. 

“Fuck that. Let’s do it. Let’s get nasty.”

“No. I changed my mind!” He says, but Mickey feels as though he’s somehow gained the upper hand now, and over the sound of Ian’s protests, he grabs him around the middle and under the legs and tosses him messily onto the bed. 

Fuck  _ him  _ in high heels. Gallagher fucking wishes, and he’s living in some kind of fantasy land if he thinks it’s his dick that’s running this relationship. Before he can sit up again and start wrestling back, Mickey pins him back down onto the bed and straddles his lap. 

It’s a good enough position and makes him feel more like he’s in charge, but Mickey’s not entirely confident he’ll be able to sit on Ian’s dick without even the barest amount of fingering himself before-hand, and Ian appears ready to jump right in. He’s already reaching up and above himself to get the lube from the nightstand, and that only leaves Mickey with a couple dozen seconds to shift on his knees and try to decide how this is going to work in reality.

He’s definitely going to have to do most of the work in this position, but on the flipside, Ian will have little or no control for once. It’s just going to be Mickey. Mickey deciding how much of Ian’s dick he’s going to take and for how long, and what the fuck’s Gallagher going to do about it?

Nothing. That’s what.

Somewhere further down the block a car door slams, and the muffled sound of a woman’s laugh comes through the window. 

“Are you ready?” Ian asks.

“Yeah, just give me some of that.”

Mickey takes the lube, spreads some on his fingers, then he pulls himself up higher on his knees, still spread on either side of Ian’s legs, and puts his clean hand against the wall for balance. 

Below him, Ian watches. He watches as Mickey reaches between his own legs and starts fingering himself slowly. They probably should have put some music on or something, but neither of them thought about it and now there’s nothing to cover up the sounds Mickey’s fingers are making as they slide in and out, or the occasional noises he’s making too in response to the things he’s doing to himself. He’s never masturbated in front of anyone before; never touched himself while someone else sat back and watched like he’s the star of his own porn channel. 

But it’s only Ian, and Ian can be goddamn patient for a minute and a half while Mickey gets himself ready for the main attraction. 

Gallagher doesn’t complain. The dark makes it difficult to read Ian’s expression, but it’s easy enough to see the slow rhythm of his hand just below his waist. Getting ready to fuck Mickey even as Mickey’s getting ready to be fucked. 

Mickey’s ready and Ian seems ready, and there’s no point talking about it because this part they can do without words. He doesn’t need to ask to get Ian to hold his dick straight up and steady, and no one needs to tell Mickey how to lower himself on to it. Carefully, until he can feel it inside him, until Ian’s sure it’s not going to slip out and his hand gets out of the way and goes to rest on Mickey’s thigh instead. Then slowly. As slow as he wants until the feeling of being stretched goes from intense to perfect while he palms his own dick distractedly with fingers still coated in lube. Ian’s eyes are closed, his mouth open. 

One hand still braced against the wall, Mickey leans forward enough to wipe the extra lube off his other hand and onto the sheet before putting it on Ian’s chest. Then he just has to move his hips, lifting up enough until he’s worried Ian might slip out, then back down again with enough pressure to make both of them moan. Ian’s already fighting against the idea of not controlling how fast and far they go; he’s trying to sit up so he can wrap his arms around Mickey’s midsection. As soon as he finds a good position, he starts moving his hips like it’s completely reasonable he should be in charge of what they’re doing from the bottom of their two-man dogpile. 

Every time he pushes into Mickey, and it’s exactly like it always - only - is when they’re together, Mickey feels the loss of Ian from the last year a little less. As though being together like this supersedes anything they could do to each other emotionally. 

Maybe because this is the only way they ever connect. 

Whether it’s the only thing keeping them together or not, Mickey’s perfectly happy to sit on Ian’s lap anytime. They’ll do this whenever they want, and everything will be fine. 

Ian’s still shifting below him, pushing up as much as the soft mattress allows, while his arms do their best to pull Mickey down closer. 

Whether or not it was made to, Ian’s dick does fit inside him, and when it’s there, touching and pushing against parts of him that literally no one else ever has, Mickey’s body rewards him. Rewards him by making everything feel better. Like now, there’s no discomfort in the moment, no worries about the future. Just a sort of reverberation through his muscles and his bones that this is good and he wants more, and Ian is hot and perfect and his. 

Speaking of which; Ian’s not just trying to fuck Mickey now, he’s trying to flip them over so he can be on top, but he’s just not strong enough. Mickey pushes him back down, puts both his hands on Ian’s chest for leverage this time, and they fuck like that - Mickey moving his hips, Ian resigned and trapped below him, the mattress thumping against the wall every so often, an unwilling participant. 

This goes on until they’re both panting, from the exertion and the compounding sensations. Mickey’s starting to regret his decision to be on top. It’s hot in the room now, or it’s just them, but Ian’s chest is slick with sweat and one of Mickey’s hands has slipped off it and onto the mattress. He’s hunched over, gasping, not even trying to hide the faces he’s making as Ian single-mindedly searches for the perfect angle below him. Hitting a different spot with each thrust. He can’t think. He just wants to come on Ian’s dick. Right now, and then maybe again later or possibly two more times tonight. Any second he’s going to. He can feel it, in his stomach, wiping out any thought that isn’t related to how deep Ian is inside him, how fucking good every inch of his body feels when they’re like this, and the way his orgasm is just building and building and building until there’s no difference between the feeling of Ian’s fingers digging into his thighs and his own hand on his dick rubbing it fast, and rough. It’s all overwhelming and perfect. 

Below him, Ian lets out a helpless groan and pulls Mickey even tighter down on his lap, and there’s no way he can’t feel how much Mickey’s legs are shaking against his hips. 

Fuck, fuck, fuck. That one word, over and over in his head, mixed with a hundred other barely-formed, inexcusably-dirty thoughts when Mickey does finally come; backlit in the white light of the moon, head tilted towards the ceiling, gasping softly because the house is too still and quiet to just let himself moan. 

Ian doesn’t give him a chance to recover. He continues to grind against and up and into Mickey’s ass because it’s not over until they’re both finished. It’s not over until Ian’s heels are digging into the mattress, until his eyes are scrunched shut, and his head is thrown as far back against the pillow as it can go. Instead of  _ fuck  _ he says  _ Mickey _ , and instead of gasping, he moans. Loud and unmistakable, like he doesn’t give a flying fuck that Mandy is sleeping just one room over. 

“Holy fuck,” Ian says like he means it; whatever the fuck it is that means. 

Mickey is breathing heavily, leaning over Ian like a dark shadow, hands pressed against the bed and holding himself up with arms that are shaking badly, but he can’t make them stop. 

Ian opens his eyes and for a few seconds they just look at each other. They keep looking as Mickey pulls himself up and off of Ian’s dick and don’t break eye contact until he gives into his exhausted body and falls with a flop onto the sliver of bed left between Ian and the wall. The way he jostles around trying to get comfortable must annoy Gallagher. After half a minute of it, he grabs Mickey and pulls him over, onto his chest. Their legs tangle together. Mickey’s body moves up and down rhythmically, like a moored ship, as Ian breathes. The house is quiet again. They keep each other warm.

When he wakes up, Ian is gone. 

*-*-*

It’s still early, he’s groggy and sore from the sex and the hours spent before it sleeping on the couch. He should probably just roll over and go back to sleep. Speaking of sleep, did Ian get any? Mickey remembers trying to stay awake in the pleasant aftermath of their time together - laying on Ian’s chest, listening to the sound of his heartbeat - but must not have managed to for very long. Now he has no way of knowing how long after that Ian decided to get up and left Mickey to sleep alone. 

Instead of pulling his boxers on and falling back asleep, Mickey brings yesterday’s clothes with him into the bathroom and showers. 

He’s not immune to guilt - even if he does have a healthy sense of what he can take from the world whether or not he’s ‘earned’ it - and mooching off the Gallaghers hasn’t done much for his self-confidence lately. Even though the Gallaghers barely have shit worth mooching off of anyways. I mean, come on. How bad is he supposed to feel over a handful of Prell every couple of mornings and five minutes under the leaky faucet they call a shower?

Today, that guilt has lost its sting. He has money to his name, things with Ian are going as well as they ever are, and, now that he’s paid off Svetlana, he can go back to work worry-free and start making some regular money again. 

Life is good. 

When he gets downstairs, Ian is making pancakes. He says he was out on a run, and shows Mickey a picture of the ‘sunrise’ on his phone even though all Mickey sees is a splotch of orange over the same buildings they’ve been walking past their whole lives. Ian says he’s been up since five even though that’s not physically possible. If it is true, then he must not have slept at all, and there’s just no reason for it. No reason that Mickey can imagine for Ian to be jumping out of bed less than two hours after they finally laid down in it just to go out on a run in thirty degree weather before the sun’s even come up. Or for him to be bouncing off the walls now, even with the news that Veronica’s having her babies. Presumably, Ian loves Veronica more than Mickey does. Presumably, he really does care. 

A few seconds after hearing the news, Ian’s eyes lose their spark of interest and he goes back to flipping the pancakes. The topic of conversation changes again. 

There’s no reason the idea of Ian doing drugs should put such a knot in Mickey’s chest. So he’s neurotic. Ian’s always been neurotic. He likes to get shit done and nine times out of ten it’s shit Mickey never would have thought of. 

But this isn’t the same Ian. It’s Ian without focus. It’s Ian whose goals now range from ‘seeing the sunrise’ to revolutionizing the video game industry, but all have one thing in common: after his initial frenzy, he won’t be mentioning them any more. 

Where’s he getting the stuff? What’s it cut with?

Mickey thinks all of this in a few seconds while he eats the pancakes his tweeking boyfriend made him and Debbie worries obsessively about where Fiona could have gone that was so important she missed her house arrest curfew. 

Mickey knows the answer to that too, but won’t say. Drugs. It’s always drugs. Drugs that have kept his cousins in and out of jail for as long as he can remember. Drugs that always made Iggy and Joey forget to pick him and Mandy up from elementary school to walk them home. Or, when they did remember, it would be drugs on the tables - in pipes or bongs or on little pieces of tin foil - of the apartments his brothers would take them to. Where Mickey and Mandy would be relegated to a spot in the corner in front of the TV while their older brothers got high with friends and spoke truths about the world no teacher would ever teach. Some of which he remembers to this day.

Now it’s Ian. Still more or less the same person, but with his dial turned all the way up for things like forgetting and sudden onsets of fleeting excitement. If Fiona’s gone now, if she’s forgotten her curfew, her family, her home, for even one night then it’s drugs. Mickey’s not in the position of judging, but the truth is the truth. One day, Debbie will be the age he is now, and she’ll understand. She’ll have enough life experience to finally know why her brother and sister couldn’t look her in the eye, why they were never where they were supposed to be, where they said they’d be. She’ll understand just fine one day, but there’s no point in trying to explain it to her now. 

Better to just let the girl be. 

Fiona’s going back to prison, and, if Mickey’s experience has taught him anything, it won’t be the last time. As quick as the thought comes, it blends into another one. Mandy’s awake now; in the kitchen, getting coffee. Her face is a sign board of purple bruises, all advertising the same thing: my boyfriend beats me. She looks exactly like their mother. Not just a stunningly similar genetic remake of the woman, but a perfect copy. Shoulders slumped, hair pushed forward to hide her face; making herself a cup of coffee and admonishing Mickey for bringing up what happened.

_ It’s not a big deal. Let’s just forget about it. Why don’t you guys tell me what you’re doing today _

Mandy’s boyfriend beat the shit out of her, and, if Mickey’s experience has taught him anything, it won't be the last time. 

“I told Mickey she could stay here, and you’re not going back by the way. We’ll find you some place to live, okay?” Ian says, triggering a whole different set of annoyance for Mickey.

“Why the fuck should she leave? It’s our house.”

At this rate, there won’t be any goddamn Milkovich’s left in their family home.

Proving he can provide more than just money, Mickey pulls a suspect utensil out of the cup on the table in front of him, and to Debbie’s relief it’s her missing shiv. Plastic and duct tape, and the school’s metal detectors pretty much ensure no one Debbie comes across there will have a better weapon than that.

Ah, high school. It was a simpler time. 

*-*-*

Ian’s been upstairs in the shower for almost five minutes and Mickey still hasn’t thought of anything to say to Mandy. 

_ Don’t ever fucking go back to that guy he’ll do it again,  _ seems like a good place to start. But he’s already made his stance on that clear, and doesn’t really want to hear any of the deflections she’d answer with anyways.

_ Want me to kill Kenyata?  _ is another possibility. But he isn’t in the mood to joke about that. If he was going to, he’d just do it; wouldn’t wait around asking for permission. 

He could say,  _ Don’t do it. Don’t do this please because if you become just like mom, and I become just like dad, then what the fuck is the point of any of this? _

He’d say it too...maybe, but some things are harder to articulate than think, and when she reaches under his arms to take his empty plate off the table, he doesn’t say anything at all. 

Some people don’t want to hear sense, and a person with fresh bruises on their face is usually one of them. 

As she washes the dishes and puts the box if Bisquik away, Mandy doesn’t say anything to him either.

*-*-*

Ian leaves to check hospitals for Fiona, Mandy’s got work in a few hours, and Mickey’s going to the Alibi. He hasn’t been there since dropping the money off for Svetlana, after he and Ian robbed that john at the hotel, and hasn’t gotten a cut of his money since Kevin gave him that insulting two-hundred and fifty bucks as though Mickey’s an afterthought in his own fucking business. 

They’re  _ his _ whores, and he can find another place for them to suck dick if he has to. It’s time he makes Kevin aware of the fact and gets what’s coming to him; not just the fucking leftovers. If Kev and V just so happen to be stuck at the hospital today, all the better. It’s time he showed up and started running the place like a goddamn Milkovich. 

When he gets to the Alibi and goes to grab a beer from behind the counter, Paco says no freebies. Kevin’s orders. Not even for Mickey. He pays up front, lets it go. It’s nothing really, a drop in the bucket of his current grievances with his ‘landlords’. 

Before he can head up and check on the actual business side of things, Svetlana meets him at the bottom of the stairs and pulls him towards the back office to talk. She’s speaking low like they’re suddenly co-conspirators and not at all like just a few days ago she fleeced Mickey for half a grand. Not that her volume matters; anything they’re going to say to each other will be lost under the general clamor of competing conversations, clinking glasses, and clacking pool balls coming from the main area of the bar.

“Is this how you like it,” She starts, “Other men walking all over you?”

“You wanna rephrase that? How about ‘good morning Mickey, is there anything I can get you?’”

“Good morning, Mickey. Do you tire today of being such a pathetic excuse for man?”

No one ever wins the angry staring contests between them. 

“What do you want?” He asks her finally because he can tell there is something. He can tell because he knows her well enough. That thought, along with her rude greeting and the beer he had to pay for, all sit like lumps in his chest because there’s nowhere else for those feelings to go. 

“For my husband to pull dick out of ass and work.”

“Great. Wish fucking granted.”

He makes like he’s going to walk away, but she grabs him by the arm before he can get more than a step. This time when their eyes meet, she looks ready to have an actual conversation and not just throw insults around. 

“I can help you.” She says, and Mickey’s not sure that’s true, but he’s also not sure it’s  _ not _ true. So he leans against the wall and waits for her to say more. “It’s not right. The money oaf take from us - from you.”

“What do you want me to do about that? It’s his place.”

“No. You are wrong.  _ We _ are the service. He does not own us. We do not work for him.”

_ Damn right,  _ Mickey thinks,  _ you work for me. _ But he doesn’t interrupt her to say that out loud. 

“I see on the internet-”

“How the fuck did you get on the internet?”

“Don’t interrupt! I read on the internet about women who are hired to others. To work.”

“Like whores?”

“ _ Niet _ Mickey. Not like whores. Kelly Girls. They are sent by man who owns them to do jobs for others. For pay.” 

“Kelly Girls?”

“Yes. They are working for one man who charges money to send them to work for others. Like us, except you are too soft and charge nothing. You let big oaf take everything, then cry to me because you have no money for Yvegenny.” 

“How much?” He wants numbers, not insults. 

“Twenty percent. Finder’s fee. You pay rent, Kevin pays for us. No negotiations.”

Mickey grabs her by the jacket before she can react. She doesn’t attempt to break free, just looks at him with icy eyes and waits. 

_ If she’s really so angry all the time _

“Don’t fucking tell me what to do,”

_ He could help her with that _

“And the next time you have a good idea, try some ‘please’ and ‘thank you’s’ while you’re at it.”

The look on her face doesn’t soften, but when she ends the conversation with a quiet ‘okay’, the sudden anger that reared up inside him deflates and disappears once again. In the back of his mind, Mickey hears Ian say:  _ sidepiece; homewrecker.  _ Who is this woman if not his wife? And why does everything have to be so fucking confusing all the damn time?

Neither of them have anything left to say. He walks away first, past the pool tables, back to the main part of the bar. When he gets to the counter, he realizes he still has half a glass of beer on hand. He drinks while he watches Paco pull cash off the counter and put it in the till. 

Kevin’s been giving him a bum deal since the beginning; he doesn’t need Svetlana to tell him that. He lost a shit ton of their money getting ‘robbed’ (for all Mickey knows, he was lying about that all along so he could keep the money), he’s been stiffing Mickey lately - changing the terms of the deal, charging bullshit prices for rent, water, gas - and Mickey’s still not fucking getting paid for his part in all this. Who knows how much more Kevin’s been squirrelling away without his knowledge. 

Slow and steady, because it never actually left at all, the anger grows inside his chest again. The next time Paco opens the till, Mickey hops over the counter and stops him from closing it. On their stools, across the bar, Tommy and Kermit sip their beers and watch the whole thing silently. 

“What are you doing, Mickey?” Paco asks. 

There’s a tone for asking friendly questions, and a tone for asking questions you think you’re not going to like the answer to, and this definitely sounds like the latter. 

“Reevaluating the terms of my contract.”

“That’s something you need to take up with Kev and Veronica when they get back.”

He tries to close the drawer by force, but Mickey’s got a good grip on it and doesn’t budge. 

“Don’t worry, I will. Right now, I’m gonna take my pay for last week and we’ll call it even.”

“I can’t let you do that.”

It’s all very noble of Paco, but Mickey isn’t asking for his permission. 

“What’s it worth?” Mickey asks, and Paco just shakes his head like he knows where this is going and has no interest in playing along. “C’mon. Tell me what it’s worth to you. Your hand? Your nose? Why don’t you tell me what I gotta break to get you to give me this money, and I’ll start there. Save us both some time.”

Apparently, it’s neither. Paco takes his hand off the drawer and steps back, watching silently along with the rest of the nearby patrons as Mickey takes the measly store of cash from the register and puts it in his pocket. Then he takes his empty beer glass, fills it for a few seconds at one of the taps, and drains it again in a few gulps. 

Now he’s going to go upstairs and earn the money he just took. He leaves the empty glass behind for someone else to clean up; Kevin’s not fucking paying him to tend bar.

Halfway up the stairs, his anger is in check, his mind is clear, and he’s feeling a little better. It lasts about three seconds. Coming down the stairs above him is a customer. Not someone he’s seen before, but the more the merrier and he’s glad to see the girls have a draw outside of Kevin’s tiny social circle. 

“If you haven’t paid yet, don’t bother.” The guy says to him, and Mickey’s too surprised to give any sort of answer. “Girls up there are bundled up tighter than a duck’s ass. Can’t see tits. Can’t see shit.”

The guy continues down the stairs without saying anything else, pulling his own warm jacket tight across his chest, and Mickey stares at his back for a few seconds, internally warring with the desire to follow him out onto the street and beat the shit out of him just because. Before he can decide, his phone vibrates in his pocket and he pulls it out. It’s a text from Ian. Not about Fiona, it’s about…

[do you play guitar]

Mickey hasn’t even finished deciphering the last word when another message comes in:

[because I saw one at a pawn shop]

[a guitar]

[and I thought how cool it would be]

[should I learn?]

He closes the phone without responding - whatever the fuck that’s about, it can wait - but now he’s more than just angry. Worry isn’t quite the right word to describe what he’s been feeling about Ian lately. Dread might be better. A sick, slow dread that’s taken root in Mickey’s mind and started creeping through every thought. Every time he pays attention to the feeling, it whispers the same thing to him over and over: Ian’s in trouble. 

Maybe that’s true - sometimes it certainly feels true - but most of the time he knows it’s ridiculous. Ian is safe; he just is. He’s home, he’s got Mickey, his family. Everyone’s watching out for him, and this dread, this worry, is as insubstantial as a superstition. Coming and going from one day to the next, ruining Mickey’s calm with a sense of false fear.

It’s bullshit, and he’s over it. 

Guitar! His mind summons the word as though it had known it all along. Ian’s talking about learning guitar. 

[you should do it] 

He texts back to Ian without reading over any of the other one-line texts that came in while his phone was closed. 

Upstairs, he has something else that requires his attention. 

Counting the money from the register helps bring his blood-pressure back down, but there’s no denying that dick-bag on the stairs was right. The girls are bundled up tighter than a...whatever that guy said, and this place looks more like a mix between an antique store and a European hostel than a rub n’ tug. Since he was here last, new furniture has come in. Wicker, metal, brass. All mismatched, all with peeling paint, all smelling like dust and rot and ancient spices; as if whoever owned this stuff before used to spend all day inside cooking with the windows closed and the heat on high. 

Svetlana is already up here as well, bouncing Fuck You in her arms and decidedly not working. 

“Hey!” He says to her, “Can you tell these girls to show a little skin for Christ’s sake. They’re not climbing Everest, they’re climbing dick.”

Reasonable. Calm. Calmer than he’d normally be because a sure-fire way to make a bad day worse is to start losing your cool over little things. 

“It’s cold.” She says, and Mickey half expects to see a white cloud come out as she exhales if that’s her whole argument, but of course he doesn’t because it’s not that fucking cold in here.

“There’s heat.” He counters.

“Downstairs.”

“And heat rises. It comes up through the floor. Look at this!”

Svetlana walks away even as Mickey’s proving his point, telling the nearest girl to take her damn parka off. Before he can say the same thing to all the girls - and repeat it until the point sticks - Kevin comes in through the door to the stairs, shouting Mickey’s name and bitching about babies and money all in the same breath. 

“Your register, my cash.” Mickey corrects him. He was hoping Kevin would be gone all day and they could have this argument later, but either way he’s not going to budge. He knows he’s in the right here. 

“You still owe me from last week.” Mickey explains. Cool. Calm. “Plus, now there’s a finder’s fee.”

“A what?” Kevin asks.

“A finder’s fee. You’re gonna charge for rent, I’m gonna charge for whores. Twenty percent.” 

Svetlana stands next to him while he talks. Together they stare down Kevin; tag-teaming him the same way Kevin and Veronica had tag-teamed Mickey when they first came up with these ridiculous percentages. 

“It’s like uh...What is it?”

“Kelly Girls.” Svetlana says, backing him up.

“Kelly Girls. But instead of Kelly, it’s Mickey and instead of girls, it’s whores.”

The argument sounds even better to him the second time, coming from his own mouth. Without waiting for Kevin to reply, Mickey pushes past him to head down the stairs. He’s suddenly got a strong craving for a cigarette, and maybe another beer.

Instead of getting either of those things, at the upper landing of the stairs, in full view of the girls, Kevin pulls a gun on him and tells him to empty his fucking pockets. 

Mickey looks down at the gun pointed at his chest. It’s his. The one he gave Kevin to protect this place and now it’s being used against him. 

This isn’t a business negotiation anymore, it’s a robbery, and there’s no longer any question of whether or not the money’s his because if Kevin has to take it from him with a gun, then it’s Mickey’s goddamn money. And if Mickey has to take it back from Kevin with an even bigger gun, then that’s just the way the world works. 

The chance of having a nice day has been reduced to zero. Inside Mickey, the anger has caught like a brush fire; grown and spread through his chest and limbs. Kevin didn’t start the fire, but every look from the girls as he robs Mickey, the feeling of Kev patting his pockets down looking for anything else he can take, is one hell of an accelerant. 

Somewhere in the room, Fuck You lets out a few pitiful cries.

“He’s a fucking dead man.” Mickey says to Svetlana after Kevin leaves the upper apartment so fast anyone not blinded by rage could see just how terrified he is. 

Mickey doesn’t have time, or any extra space in his head, for Kevin’s fears.

*-*-*

“Mickey, please. I’m asking you- begging you. I need some help tonight.”

“Did you hear what I fucking said. I’d love to play house with you. I’ll play it all fucking night, but not tonight!” 

It’s not exactly an argument, but the fact that they’re having to shout to be heard makes it feel more like one. He and Ian are in the Gallagher’s kitchen, and the sound they’re shouting to be heard over is Debbie. Ever since Mickey came in the door, and probably before that too, she’s kept up a nervous, unending monologue about Fiona. At first it was a list of hospitals, shelters and Frank drinking spots she’s already checked, but that list must have been exhausted because now it sounds like she’s just naming all the possible ways Fiona could have died since they last saw her while Ian rubs her hair soothingly and tries to have a conversation with Mickey. 

“Debbie, please.” Ian begs, but she doesn’t quiet her frantic talking. When that doesn’t work, he says to Mickey instead, “Why don’t you just go upstairs, take a shower, and calm down?”

“Why don’t I- You know what? Fuck you! Did you even hear what I said?”

On the stove, the forgotten pot of macaroni boils over, and the foam hisses when it touches the fire.

“Yeah, Mick. I heard what you said, but it sounds like- Debbie! For fuck’s sake!”

This time Ian yells loud enough to get Debbie to stop talking. After a breath, he continues, “It sounds like he needed the money today for the babies. You can talk to him later about getting it back. 

“Dinner’s burning.” Debbie says pointing at the pot, and Ian pulls it off the heat and puts it on one of the back burners. 

“Fine.” Mickey says, “It’s later. I’ll go talk to him about it again. Only this time I’m going to bring a much bigger gun, and he’s gonna empty his pockets for me.”

Ian makes a face at him like he’s wondering if that’s innuendo for something. 

“Fuck off.”

“Look, whatever happened,” Ian says as he helps Debbie dump the contents of the pot into a colander in the sink, “between you and Kev, I’m sure you’ll work it out.” 

“He fucking  _ robbed _ me.”

“But Fiona is missing-”

“With my own  _ fucking _ gun-”

“And Lip’s still at school-”

“So now I’m gonna go-”

“And if you go to jail for murdering our friend-”

“Stick a gun in face, and blow his fucking brains out!”

“Then who’s going to help me search all the regular spots tonight!?”

Now they’re really yelling at each other, not just shouting to be heard, and when they’ve both said their piece the kitchen falls relatively silent. 

Something about telling Ian his frustrations - and yelling them too - has helped cool Mickey’s rage down and brought him back from the edge of an outburst the way Ian thought a warm shower might. 

“What are you talking about?” He asks in the most reasonable voice he’s used since Kevin pulled out that gun. “I thought you guys already checked everywhere.”

“I mean the hospitals, yeah.” Ian answers, grabbing the milk from the fridge. “But there’s a few more clinics I want to check with too. And I feel like we should at least walk by the shanty town, take a look. We’ve overlooked it before and then found out Frank was hiding there the whole time.”

“You’re gonna go to the shanty town tonight? Alone?” Mickey doesn’t even bother to sound condescending when he says it, there’s no way in hell Ian would be that stupid. 

“I won’t be alone if you come with me.”

“I could come with you.” Debbie offers. 

“No. You’re going to stay here, eat your macaroni, do your homework, and go to bed at a reasonable time.”

“How am I supposed to sleep here alone? Carl said he’d be out all night with Bonnie.”

“Well, Mandy can keep you company.”

“She’s not here either. She never came back from work.” 

“I’m sure she’ll be back soon.” Ian looks towards Mickey as he says it for support, and Mickey nods even though he has no way of knowing one way or the other. 

They eat their macaroni on the couch, in front of the TV, and when they’re all done, and Debbie’s absorbed in her show, Ian asks again for Mickey’s help looking for Fiona tonight. This time, with his stomach full and his grievances momentarily aired, Mickey agrees. 

*-*-*

They leave Debbie on the couch, promising to text her if they find anything, and receiving a promise in return that she’ll go to bed at a reasonable hour. Then they bundle up - hats, scarves, jackets, two pairs of socks - and start walking. 

Ian doesn’t need his phone or a map, he’s got the whole loop memorized, and it sounds like they should be able to stop by every clinic, shelter and encampment within ten miles before the sun rises. 

Most of these places they could call, but there’s no replacing the way Ian looks at the receptionists so full of hope, and there’s no way they’d be quite as motivated to check their records for a mid-twenties, brunette jane-doe as they are when they have to look him in the eyes and say they haven’t seen her. There’s also no substitute for just walking the streets. Ian is undaunted by Chicago’s local late-night population, and on almost every block he finds someone to talk to, someone to ask. 

Most of the people have no idea who he’s talking about, a few of them recognize the name Gallagher in relation to Frank, but none of them have any solid leads about Fiona. One girl - sitting on a crumbling concrete wall, smoking under the light of a street lamp a few blocks away from the nearest sign of the city’s more boisterous night-life - Mickey recognizes from school. She hasn’t seen Fiona, or heard of anyone like that being around in the last few days, but she sells them a few loose joints so talking to her isn’t a complete waste. 

The last stop for the night before Ian agrees to call it quits and head home is the canal under the bridge. There’s enough tents, fires, and warm bodies here to consider the place a mini city - or at least a neighborhood in its own right. It’s no wonder Frank’s been lost to this place on more than one occasion - Mickey himself tried to hunt Frank down here once, with no success - and the idea of the two of them simply stumbling across Fiona, even if she is here, is preposterous. 

As they stand on the outskirts of the furthest camps, the whole place spread out in front of them, Ian’s shoulders slump like he understands that now too. 

Instead of trying their luck weaving through the tents and clusters of people, watching every step for needles and glass, Ian agrees to give the whole thing up for the night. He looks so sad at the prospect, and just all around miserable from another night gone and his sister still missing, that Mickey wonders if it might not actually be worth it to check. No, they won’t find her, but maybe checking this one last spot will be enough to lift Ian’s spirits a little. If that’s the case then it would be worth it. 

Cold, a little hungry, and already sore from a night of walking, Mickey offers to take a look around the shanty town while Ian waits, and see if there’s any sign of Fiona. But Ian just shakes his head, looking genuinely tired for the first time Mickey’s seen in a long time. 

“Nah. We’ll never find her in there.” Ian says truthfully. “Actually, I’ve been thinking about those joints ever since we bought them.”

Mickey has too, and instead of walking all the way home first they decide to light up here. They find a pile of rubble further down the canal, far enough away from the shanty town that none of the fire’s lights reach them and there’s no one else around. Amid the moldy wood doors, tire rims, broken furniture, and old building materials is an abandoned dining room table, still standing on all four legs. They sit on it with their own legs dangling off the table and share a joint between them. 

“Thanks for coming out with me tonight,” Ian says, but Mickey’s in the middle of a deep inhale and doesn’t answer. “It reminds me of before, when we used to hang out like this all the time.”

Before; when they had been kids and every night was a chance to be together. To meet each other in the dark and find all the places in the neighborhood they could be alone. 

“Yeah, I miss that.” Mickey says. He had to take his gloves off to light and hold the joint, but now his fingers are cold. 

They smoke and look up at the sky or over towards the fires, and for a few minutes say nothing to each other out loud. Eventually, Ian breaks the silence again:

“Where do you think it all went so wrong? Us, I mean.” He pauses but when Mickey doesn’t answer right away, he keeps talking like he can’t help himself. “I think I know. I’ve thought about it a lot, but I want to know what you think.”

Mickey doesn’t have to come up with an answer on the spot, he’s thought about it before too. 

“It went wrong the first fucking day I met you.”

“That’s a shitty thing to say.” Ian mumbles, but Mickey ignores him. 

“I should of just…” The joint’s still in his hands, and Mickey stares at it for a few long seconds while he thinks. “Should of fucking kept my hands to myself. You’d still be in school, be going into the army like an officer. Like you always said. Before...before I fucked it all up.”

He can picture it too: Ian, unburdened by all the shit Mickey has caused in his life, spending his time studying instead of fucking, passing his classes, getting into whatever academy or college he wanted. It’s not some crazy fantasy either; it  _ should _ have been reality. Would have been. If Mickey hadn’t come into his life and fucked everything up. Now what do either of them have to show for any of it? Except each other. 

Ian’s looking at him. Even through the dark and the clouds of smoke they’ve exhaled, Mickey can tell. 

“Jesus, Mick. I knew you were dumb, but I didn’t know you were  _ that  _ dumb.”

“Fuck off, Gallagher. If being dumb was a class, you’d have, like, an A in it.”

When Ian kisses him there’s no desire to jump back, to pull away. Even when it’s quick like this. Just a few seconds of their lips together; soft, both of them smelling overwhelmingly like weed. 

When Ian pulls back, he takes the last drag of the joint for himself and flicks it onto the frozen ground in front of the table. Then says, “If that’s what you think about you, then I guess I don’t want to know what you think about me.”

“The fuck’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m the reason you got shot. The reason you went to prison. The reason you went  _ back  _ to prison. If I hadn’t stayed the night...that morning. Everything would have been different.”

Maybe. Hearing it like that does bring back a lot of memories, but Ian’s off base if he thinks it’s a fair comparison. Everything that’s happened in Mickey’s life so far is exactly what was bound to happen. He never had a shot at something better like Ian, so there was nothing for Ian to take away in the first place. Also, if Ian wants to dredge up old shit that still pisses Mickey off, he’s way off base with those things. 

“Yeah alright. I’m still pissed about some of the shit you did.” Ian nods gravely, but hasn’t even heard what the shit is. “You told that fucking doctor I was your boyfriend.”

“His name’s Ned.”

“And your brother.”

“Is that seriously what bothers you? That I told two people you’re gay? Mick, you’re gay!”

“Three. You told my dad too.” 

Ian sputters, caught off guard. They both sit still for a moment, catching up to what Mickey said. Then, without meaning to, they start laughing. A happy, intoxicated sound so loud people can probably hear it all the way over in the shanty town. 

“Yeah, I guess I did that too.” Ian says, wiping tears from his eyes after their laughter finally starts to fade away. “Hell of a way to come out...when are you going to come out, Mickey?”

“Thought we were talking about how you fucked up my life.”

“Okay. Besides telling Ned-”

“And Lip.”

“ _ And _ Lip, that you’re gay. Do you really forgive me for everything else?”

“Nah, I fucking hate you. Haven’t I told you that yet?” He says sarcastically, and for once he’s unwillingness to be serious doesn’t make Ian frown. 

It must be the weed. It’s kicking in now for Mickey too. Making him feel lighter, the table below him less substantial. He could sit here all night and watch Ian. Every worry he had twenty minutes ago is gone. 

Why didn’t he see it before?

How fucking stupid all that shit is. Everything he wants, he has. Right here in front of him. He’s literally  _ never _ wanted anything as badly as he wants to be with Ian. Like this. That’s it. This is the best possible path for his life because it brought him right here. Right now. 

All at once it feels like a very big thing to realize, to genuinely understand, that there’s nothing in the world that could ever be more important than existing side-by-side with someone, connecting with them...loving them. Not money. No number of things. No amount of accomplishments. None of that means shit compared to Ian.

He could have nothing, but as long as Ian was with him they could start all over again. Or he could have everything, enough money to buy the whole world ten times over, and without Ian it’d all be worthless. 

He’s lost track of their conversation, too caught up in his own thoughts and revelations. Ian is silent too, staring at him, and Mickey’s not sure if it’s his turn to respond. 

“I love you.” He says out loud. Not thinking about the fact that Ian will hear it; not thinking about how he might respond. The words just come out together like that: fully-formed, honest. And once he’s said it, it’s done. 

Ian still hasn’t responded, but the expression on his face now is definitely different from the one that was there just a few seconds ago, before Mickey spoke.

“What?” He asks after a long pause. Even though there’s no way in hell Mickey’s going to repeat himself.

“I said it’s a nice night.”

Ian hits him. A solid punch, right on his bicep, and the ferocity behind it make Mickey curse and jump off the table. 

“The fuck is your problem, Gallagher?”

It’s a question he’s asked before, but there never seems to be an answer good enough to encompass the full range of possibilities. 

“What’s my- What’s your fucking problem!? Why would you say that now? After all this fucking time!”

“Maybe I-”  _ Didn’t love you before _ , is what he’s going to say as he rubs the sore spot on his arm, but some tiny bastion of rational thought in his brain stops him before he can. 

“Why would you say it now?”

“You don’t have to say it back.” Mickey says, echoing Ian’s sentiments from the first time they had this conversation but the other way around. If anything, it only seems to make him angrier.

“ _ I _ did say it! I said it because I meant it. Then you went and got married, and you’re still fucking married!”

“What’s that got to do with anything? I’m staying with you. I...I want to be with you.”

“Then break up with her. Leave. Stop paying for the kid, and tell everyone you’re not his father. People think that she’s your wife and they...don’t even know about us.”

_ What fucking people? _ Mickey wants to ask, but Ian didn’t make it through the last sentence with a steady voice, and Mickey’s arm doesn’t really hurt any more, and he doesn’t want to argue, and he sure as shit doesn’t want to make Ian cry. 

They’re both off the table now, standing a few feet from each other; both of them look angry, but mostly Mickey just feels defensive. What does Ian know about any of this? And what’s it to him if Mickey’s keeping up his - mostly business related - relationship with Svetlana? It’s been beneficial for both of them, and it’s not like she expects Mickey to come home at night and fuck her, to change Fuck You’s diapers, or any of that shit. 

Telling the whole world that his relationship with Svetlana is a sham, that he and Ian are together, has so many downsides and so few upsides it’s difficult for Mickey to even consider. It feels like a faraway thing, a some-day thing, or maybe a never thing if he’s being honest, but he’s not sure how he’s supposed to tell Ian that. So he lies. Because he doesn’t want to have this conversation. Because Ian is worried about his sister and being unreasonable and everything will look different to him in the morning. 

“Alright, I’m gonna do it.”

“When?”

“Soon.”

“This week?”

“ _ What? _ Fuck- alright, yeah, this week. Or soon.”

Ian shakes his head and mumbles, “Yeah sure you will, Mick.”

Worse than the arguing, than the mumbling, is the look on Ian’s face that says he doesn’t believe for a second that Mickey will actually keep his word. And, really, why should he?

He walks up to Ian, puts a hand on the back of his neck, and rests their foreheads against each other.

“I’m gonna do it. I promise. I don’t want people to think I’m married to that bitch forever. I want...I  _ will _ . I’ll do it. Just give me a little time.”

“I’ve given you so much time.” Ian says softly, and that’s it. That’s the whole sum of what Mickey will gain from telling everyone he’s gay for Gallagher: more of Ian’s time. Put like that, it does kind of sound worth it. 

They stand like that for another minute, but neither of them comes up with anything else to say. It’s freezing, they didn’t find any sign of Fiona, and sitting out here getting high on a pile of rotten furniture is not the way they should be spending the night. Not when there’s a warm bed waiting at home. 

They walk back in silence, a few feet apart. No arm touching or hand holding tonight. Mickey is so exhausted he can barely pay attention to where they are as they go; Ian’s holding his phone as he walks, texting someone or scrolling through old messages. About halfway home, he lets out a surprised, ‘Ha!’

“Lip just texted. He says Fiona’s fine and she called him from...Sheboygan.”

“That’s just fuckin’ great. Glad we spent all night looking for her. Where the fuck is Sheboygen?”

But Ian doesn’t know either, and tells him so. 

*-*-*


End file.
